Ironic Fate
by Bard of Chaos
Summary: What will happen to the world of Soul Reapers when a amnesiac fox named Uzumaki Naruto shows up? Lost and confused, what will he do in this strange new world when he can't even remember his past? Cooked up with large doses of chaos and humor. Please talk with doctor before reading. On Hiatus
1. Chapter 1: Amnesia

**I don't own Naruto or Bleach. If I did then Toshiro, Shikamaru, and Akamaru would have a lot more screen time. (Alright, I admit that Shika and Shiro had a lot but what about Akamaru? He is awesome!)**

**On to the story! (Why did I have to start a new story? –hits head on table- CURSE YOU, PLOT BUNNIES! )**

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: Amnesia<strong>

The first thing he felt was cold, the damp kind where it feels like you've been drenched in ice water. His eyes fluttered open revealing cerulean orbs before they squeezed shut again with a groan. After a minute more of lying on the ground, dead to the world, he cautiously opened his eyes again and blinked a few times to get used to the light before surveying his current location.

He was in the dirty back alley of some city. It was just his luck to be positioned in the only place where he would get sun in his eyes in the otherwise dark alley. He glared at the sun even though it was a pointless gesture and winced from the overload of light on his eyes once more.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position but it felt a little strange. He brushed it off for being cramps from lying on the ground before focusing on the more important problem. How did he get here? On second thought, where was here?

He tried to recall what he had been doing that could have possibly landed him in this situation but drew a blank. In fact, he couldn't seem to remember where he should be. With a small amount of panic, he tried to remember anything at all, a name, a face, a _past_, but ended up with the same answer as before.

Nothing.

Franticly, he searched the alley before rushing over to a broken shard of mirror sticking out of a nearby trashcan. He tried to pick it up, but his fingers felt like they were stuck together and he accidently cut them with the sharp edge. He barely noticed the pain for he was currently staring at his hand. Actually, make that paw.

Where he felt that there should instead be tan, human skin, was instead a tough black pad and curved claws, surrounded by silky orange fur. He tried to wiggle his hand and just like he imagined, the paw did the same, minus the feeling of an opposable thumb. With growing horror, he turned to the shard of mirror and nearly yelped at his reflection.

In the mirror was an orange fox. Black tipped ears twitched on top of a narrow snout. Wide, aqua blue eyes stared at him as he turned to look at the slim tail behind him. He seemed to be around the size of a large dog and his fur was sleek and shiny.

He walked around in a circle, finding it oddly natural yet unfamiliar for his inverted knees to bend backwards before coming forward but it just seemed wrong. His fur, his ears, the freaking tail! It all just felt wrong. Even though he didn't have any memories to go off, it still felt like none of this was the way it should be. When he walked, his knees should go forward, only two limbs should be used for motion, and he definitely should not have a tail!

And there was the amount of hate he had felt when he saw the reflection of a fox. It didn't feel like self hate or hate for foxes in general. Instead, he felt a wave of disgust and for some reason, a small amount of shame. Along with that, he had felt a mixture of relief and confusion when he had spotted his tail. He had unconsciously looked for it first and while he had relaxed when he made sure that there was only one, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was supposed to be more. A specific amount more but he couldn't focus on what it was.

_Three? No, that's too low. Six? Eight? _An image of a rapping octopus popped into his head, and he snorted before he jolted and tried to remember where that had come from. _Nope. _He sighed, the sound coming out like a growl. _Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter. I only have one tail, the normal amount for a fox. I feel like a raccoon for some reason though._

Deciding to ponder on that weird little tidbit later, he started to trot to the entrance of the alley from which he could pick up a foul smell. He quickly reached the entrance and winced from both the sudden rise in noise and the odor, which now smelled like a very interesting mixture of rotten food and smoke. He covered his nose with his shoulder, trying to lighten the overpowering stench that he was sure was quickly killing off the cells in his nose.

Once his nose had numbed enough, he cautiously lifted his head again, and what he saw made his eyes widen in shock. Rectangular boxes made of different colorful metals and raised off the ground by four wheels were zooming past at unbelievable speeds. If he just stared at one spot then the machines would just pass by in a blur. Spying a person inside of one left the fox gawking. _How do they not crash that? It's like a death trap on wheels! _He thought as he began to walk around the still unknown city. _Not to mention loud._ This highly sensitive smell and hearing was going to be the death of him.

Trying to ignore his throbbing ears and overloaded nose, he stared at the strange city and tried to recall any possible memories from this polluted, gray place. But his efforts brought forth nothing except for a weird sense of pride when he saw the leaves on one of the few, small trees surviving amongst the cement. Now he was even more curious and bewildered by his past. What kind of life did he have that made him proud of leaves?

He continued walking down the thin, gray road, not even noticing as bewildered people stared at him and backed away as he walked past. Suddenly, his head snapped up (startling the people near him), and he started to run as fast as he could through the masses of people. Cutting through the thick odor of pollution was a beautiful fragrance. Words couldn't describe how much he longed to find the source of that wonderful scent that was like Heaven on Earth to him.

He pushed past people, jumped over obstacles and raced across the larger, black road with the death traps on it. Finally, he stopped, panting, as he feasted his eyes upon the small restaurant from which the fragrance originated. A wooden sign with a drawing of a bowl filled with noodles announced the name of the restaurant in proud katakana. He ignored the new question of why he could read when he was a fox and instead focused on the smaller and plainer sign displayed on the window. **Sale for today only! **It announced. **Buy the beef ramen and get free toppings of seaweed, fishcake, and herbs!**

_Fishcake?_

_No. Not fishcake. It's… I'm… Uzumaki Naruto!_

And that's when the deathtrap ran me over.

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><p><strong>Hello! Welcome to Ironic Fate #1! (Please notice: the initials spell IF this is not a coincidence…) I have wanted to do this story for so long but I'm scared of butchering it with my bad writing. So please review and critique so I know how I did!<strong>

**I've been planning this story ever since I got into Fanfiction and these great animes. I actually have a document filled with just my notes for this and it has breached the 5000 word barrier. This story was largely inspired by Vulpes Alveus by Kitsune-242 and another story I can't mention at this time because it would give the plot away. But you should look up Kitsune's story, it's really good! **

**Anyways, this chapter was short but the next ones will be longer so don't worry and remember this. Reviews= Inspiration! Inspiration! = Updates :D So please review!**


	2. Chapter 2: Creepers and Weirdos unite!

**I don't own Naruto or Bleach. If I did, then the zanpakuto rebellion arc would have ended with the shinigami still being able to call them out. I love Snakey! And I'm so sorry for the stiff writing! I didn't really have much planned for this scene but it was needed.**

**READ THIS! This takes place in the Bleach world near the beginning, soon after they got Kon. Trust me, if I could completely disregard canon and make it work then I would. However, I looked over my plans a while ago and decided that I'd have to start from the beginning. Yay.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 2: Creepers and Weirdos unite!<strong>

Naruto jolted awake suddenly. He stared up at a white ceiling as he tried to slow down his panted breathing and organize his thoughts. He had just had a dream, he was sure of it. But he couldn't remember it. The only thing he could remember was blue lightning swooping down to claim his life. Now that he had managed to calm down from the absolute terror he had been feeling when he first awoke, he almost groaned. Great, now he had another thing that made absolutely no sense to try and piece together his past. He would have to decipher his dreams another time though because right now he could feel someone staring at him.

He rolled over to face the other person, slightly wincing from a pain in his leg as he did so. The person was a teenage boy with spiky orange hair and a scowl on his face. Naruto wondered why the other boy looked so upset but he was also feeling a little weirded out by the fact that the stranger had been staring at him while he was asleep. _What are you, a creeper? _Naruto thought absentmindedly as he stared back at the stranger who had just noticed that he was awake.

"So you're still alive?" The Creeper, as Naruto had decided to call him, asked pointlessly and it looked like awkwardly on the Creeper's part considering the fact that he was talking to a fox. Yup, definitely a creeper. Naruto just continued to stare at him, trying to pay the other back for staring at him as he slept.

"Stop staring at me," The Creeper demanded with an even deeper scowl on his face. Naruto didn't even know it was possible to frown that much constantly. The Creeper will probably have a lot of wrinkles when he grows up. Naruto smirked slightly from the mental image and this time it was the Creeper's turn to look freaked out.

"You have a very weird smile." The orange haired teen told him before saying incredulously, "Wait a second- how can you even smile when you're a fox?"

Naruto's only answer was to smile even bigger and the Creeper looked at him strangely before getting up from the spot on the bed where Naruto was laying to get a roll of bandages from a small desk, one of the only pieces of furniture besides the bed in the small room. Naruto inwardly celebrated his victory in the unofficial staring contest.

"Anyways, you were found bleeding out on the side of a road. It looks like you got hit by a car in your back legs but only one of them was broken thanks to your size. But you did lose a lot of blood, we weren't sure if you were going to make it through the night. You did though, so it doesn't look like we'll be getting rid of you for a while." The Creeper said as he lifted the white and blue blanket that was wrapped around Naruto. He sighed and Naruto strained his neck to look at his back leg without moving the broken limb.

His right leg was completely wrapped in white bandages that were spotted with patches of red. The Creeper unrolled some of the bandages from his roll of fresh ones and slowly moved his hands to rest under Naruto's leg. "This is going to hurt," The teenager warned and lifted Naruto's leg before the fox could protest. A wave of pain hit him but he clenched his teeth and tried to push through it. He refused to let his pain show to a stranger.

The Creeper looked faintly surprised at Naruto before quickly unwrapping the bandages and replacing them. He finished quickly and gently set down the fox's leg. He continued talking to Naruto for some reason. "The only animal hospital was on the opposite side of town and you were bleeding out so quickly that people panicked and brought you to my house since it's also a clinic. We've been trying to stop the bleeding all night and we didn't want to move you in case you started bleeding again. But now that we know you won't die on us all of a sudden, we can probably take you to the vet's soon." Now it was Naruto's turn to scowl. Despite his amnesia, he knew exactly what a veterinary clinic was and what they did there along with a vague recollection of dogs barking.

Suddenly, the closet door burst open and a girl jumped out, landing on top of The Creeper. She smoothed down the wrinkles on what looked like a girl's school uniform before looking down at The Creeper who was being pinned to the floor by the girl's foot on the back of his head.

"Hmm? Ichigo? What are you doing on the floor?" She asked, seemingly oblivious as she stepped off him.

"Like you don't know!" He shouted angrily. "Find somewhere else to stay besides my closet!"

"So you would just kick a teenage girl out on the streets with no home or possessions?" The girl asked, seemingly terrified and tearing up at the injustice.

The Creeper, whose name was apparently Ichigo, just stared at her with a completely straight face. "Yes."

"Fine, but who will teach you how to be a Soul Reaper if I leave?"

"Yeah! Listen to Nee-san!"

There was a moment of silence where Ichigo and the girl looked at each other before they simultaneously turned to look at the open closet door from which the voice had come from.

"Kon!" The girl shouted angrily and stomped into the closet, returning with a struggling stuffed animal. Naruto was very confused. He may have had amnesia and only a small amount of strange knowledge about how the world worked, but he was pretty sure that stuffed animals couldn't move or talk.

"What were you doing in the closet?" The girl continued in a low and deadly tone as she glared at the lion.

"I'm innocent! I swear! I was just hiding from Yuzu!" Kon pleaded. "Besides, it was too dark to see anything…" He added, disappointed. Naruto's eye twitched. It was a pervert too? He would never be able to look at a teddy bear the same way again.

The girl glared at Kon and proceeded to stomp on him. Ichigo just sighed as he watched them before turning to Naruto. "Rukia and I have to go to school now so it will just be you and Kon."

Rukia stopped stomping Kon (who actually looked like he was enjoying the view) and stared at Ichigo. "Are you… talking to the fox?"

"Yeah," Ichigo said, looking slightly uncomfortable yet defiant.

"Is this how modern humans act? Do I need to study more?" Rukia muttered to herself, suddenly worried.

"Nee-san, I don't think Ichigo is the best person to base normalcy off. He's not very normal himself." Kon said helpfully from the floor.

"Ah! You're right!" Rukia said cheerfully as she stomped on Kon once more. "I forgot that Ichigo is naturally a weirdo!"

Naruto looked helplessly between the three of them. He had no memories, felt like he should be human instead of a fox, and the first people he had met in this strange new life of his were a creepy guy who stared at people as they slept, a girl who slept in a creeper's closet, and a perverted talking stuffed animal of all things. He may not have any idea what a normal person would be, but he was sure that they were all weirdos. _But if you think about it, _Naruto mused. _I'm also a weirdo._

He turned his attention back to the others now that Ichigo had stopped ranting at them about how they were hypocrites and was now preparing to leave the room. The orange haired teen stopped outside the door and turned to look seriously at Kon. "Don't bother the fox. He needs to sleep to recover but you may need to feed him sometime during the day."

Kon grumbled. "What am I, your slave?"

"No, just a stuffed animal that I'm sure Yuzu would love to play with again." Ichigo said with a sadistic look in his eyes.

If it was possible, Kon would have paled and he laughed nervously. "Don't worry, Ichigo! Your pet fox is safe with me!"

Ichigo just snorted and walked out the door and they heard the door slam shut downstairs. Kon looked over speculatively at Naruto and the fox returned his stare coldly. "Meh, you can take care of yourself right? What Ichigo doesn't know won't hurt him." Kon said, nodding to himself with his arms crossed. The stuffed animal smiled gleefully. "And now I can go look for pretty girls!"

Naruto groaned. Why did it feel like he was always around perverts? It was like he was cursed. Naruto's thoughts turned more , cursed sounded right. But cursed with what? An image of fire and a thick, bubbling red appeared in his mind. Almost lazily, two tendrils of the smoke-like redness waved and if he looked closer he could have sworn that they looked like-

"-ello?" Kon said worriedly as he whacked Naruto on the noggin another time. Naruto snapped out of his thoughts, and glared at the stuffed animal, slightly baring his teeth at him.

"Fine, see if I ever worry about you again." Kon said as he quickly backed away from Naruto, specifically his teeth, and hopped off the bed. "Just don't die while I'm gone." And with that, the tiny lion left.

Naruto just sat there, blankly staring around the plainly furnished room. There wasn't much in it, just a desk, the bed, and the closet that Rukia apparently slept in. If Ichigo ever managed to learn how to speak fox then Naruto would have to tell the teen to work on interior decorating. It was boring! Naruto groaned and rolled over, wincing slightly when the movement reached his broken leg. He perked up a little though when he spotted a bowl filled with water on the desk. After a few moments of looking contemplatively between his leg and the water, Naruto decided to risk the pain and began to shuffle over to the bowl. Like he expected, pain shot up his spine, making him freeze slightly, but the pain soon passed and was even less then he thought it would be. Happily, he licked up the water and let his mind wander.

He knew that he should be trying to remember his past but his thoughts kept slipping away from him for some reason. He yawned, suddenly very tired but he shook his head, trying to refocus. He started by listing the things he knew about himself so far.

_My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I woke up in some alleyway and I am a fox. _He growled in frustration. He knew absolutely nothing! And that fox part was completely obvious. Of course he was a fox his whole life. It wasn't like he had somehow changed species overnight, was it?

Naruto yawned again, forgetting that he was trying to stay awake. In fact, he couldn't even remember what he had been so worried about. Right now, the only thing that mattered was sleep and the bed felt so comfy right now. He wiggled further into the blanket and welcomed unconsciousness.

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><p><strong>So who else thinks that Ichigo drugged Naruto? –raises hand- <strong>

**I did my best on making it as plausible as possible for Naruto's injuries. The way I see it, Naruto is the size of a large-ish dog. If a car that was going at a average speed, not too fast or too slow, hit Naruto in his back legs then it would probably just break one of his legs and cause a lot of blood loss. But I am taking some liberties here due to certain reasons that I can't reveal at this time. Those liberties also cover why Kyuubi's chakra isn't healing him automatically. Don't worry, it'll appear again soon.**

**And I didn't have Ichigo immediately take Naruto to the hospital because Naruto was on the verge of dying from loss of blood. Moving Naruto would have endangered him even more so he was instead treated at the clinic since they did have what was needed to keep Naruto alive. Naruto will visit the vet soon. Soon… -evil laughter- And Ichigo got to be a weirdo and a creeper this chapter. X3**

**Also, I'm going to try to update this story every week or two at the most. After that deadline, you have permission to hunt me down with pitchforks. Sorry for the long A/N!**

**Please review with any questions, guesses, or critique. I love all of you people who reviewed, faved, and alerted this story and I'll try and fix any problems so that this story is the best it can be. Thank you!**


	3. Chapter 3: Ramen

**If I owned Naruto or Bleach then Hichigo and Kyuubi would have more screen time as the awesome, caring characters we know that they can be. (Kurama! XD)**

**Chapter 3: Ramen**

Naruto groaned. There was definitely a pattern starting to form here.

He had just woken up from his sudden nap. There had been no lightning dream this time but Naruto was currently contemplating trying to find that stuffed animal and rip him apart to vent some of his anger.

It hadn't even been a day since he woke up in that dark alley but he had somehow managed to pass out and leave himself completely vulnerable three times. He almost didn't even want to know how bad his luck had been before his amnesia. But he pushed those thoughts away; he would never be able to recall his past if he just gave up as soon as he started.

_And I definitely won't get anywhere if I just lay here all day. _Naruto thought determinedly before getting to work on forcing his limbs to move from the comfortable warmth of the bed. He managed to push himself into a sitting position but had to pause for a moment to gather his strength again. With his strange fatigue and a good amount of light-headedness, he was starting to get a little suspicious about what had been in that innocent looking bowl of water. One quick sniff later and his suspicions were confirmed. He must have been really distracted to have not noticed that slightly bitter scent on the water.

Finally, the numbness faded from his legs enough for him to stand up. He stretched his leg slightly and instantly felt a jolt of pain but it was duller and easily ignored. _I guess whatever was in that water helped. _ He thought, shrugging, before he easily jumped off the bed.

He pushed the door open with his nose and walked down some stairs till he reached the lower floor that was halfway a kitchen and the other half was a living room. He ignored the comfy looking couch and hopped up onto a chair and from there onto the kitchen counter. Naruto then opened a cupboard by grabbing the handle between his teeth. He looked contemplatively at the brightly colored boxes inside. _Let's see, we've got cereal, crackers, oh? Peanut butter! I'll have to remember that one. _Naruto thought as he opened his mouth to grab the jar of peanut butter between his teeth when he suddenly stiffened, all thoughts of peanut butter disappearing from his mind. He slowly pushed the other dry foods out of the way and stared with awe at the ramen cup.

In his eyes, it looked like the Most Holy Ramen was shining with golden light as he carefully picked it up between his teeth as if it were a delicate baby. He quickly set it down on the counter and lay down in front of it and contented himself with staring at it, not even noticing that his tail was wagging happily behind him. His stomach growling broke him out of his silent reverie and he eagerly stood up to prepare the ramen but found himself pausing as he realized that there was no way to make the beautiful ramen without opposable thumbs. This realization almost made him give up for a second before he shook his head angrily to get those thoughts out of his mind. He was Uzumaki Naruto and nothing would keep him from his beloved ramen!

With that in mind, he began to search the other cupboards until he finally found one filled with pots. He picked one up and ran over to the sink and filled it with water. He was pleasantly surprised when he discovered that he had no problem lifting it despite his injuries and size but he then sobered as he thought over his newest problem. He already had the pot on the oven, but how could he turn it on without possibly lighting himself on fire?

He grinned, the expression looking very strange on his fox face, and jumped down from the counter to the chairs clustered around a small table. He bit down on the leg of one and dragged it over to the oven, his apparent strength helping him again. Now that he was on the chair, he was eye level with the knobs that controlled the burner. He turned the knob and a blue flame burst into life, so close to his face that he jumped back and fell off the chair. He quickly jumped up onto the counter again, glancing nervously around the room for someone who could have witnessed that embarrassing moment. There was no one. That perverted stuffed animal must have left to look for pretty girls like he had said he would.

Naruto snorted and began to pace excitedly as he waited for the ramen to reach a boil. After what felt like ages to him, the water was bubbling and he hurried to turn off the flame. He closed his mouth on the handle of the pot and slowly carried it to where the cup of dry ramen was waiting. He quickly bit through the thin, plastic lid on the cup, his sharp teeth punching through it easily, and then carefully poured the water in. Growling slightly, he sat down to wait for the noodles to soften in the hot water. He counted to 60 three times and then did it again just to be sure. Finally, he let himself eat the ramen, which he did with great gusto. Ramen was truly a gift from the gods!

Of course, because some god up there just loved to torment Naruto, Ichigo and Rukia walked in the door at that moment.

"What the…?" Ichigo muttered, dumbfounded at the sight of Naruto happily slurping up noodles on top of his kitchen counter. However, he quickly recovered and rushed to take the cup of ramen from who immediately growled at him and bared his teeth, the image slightly ruined by the noodles hanging out of his mouth. Seeing that this tactic wasn't going to work, Naruto stuck his head back in the cup and started eating as fast as he could. Ichigo snatched the cup away from him and Naruto glared at him while silently crying inside from the loss of his ramen.

"How did he get this?" Ichigo asked Rukia as he stared with a small amount of amazement at the completely empty cup. He could have sworn that it was full when they walked in.

"I don't know. Maybe your dad came home and made it for him?" Rukia suggested.

"No, my dad is at that clinic out of town for the day and he isn't supposed to be back till tomorrow." Ichigo said as he moved the chair in front of the oven to its normal spot and put the pot away. "Wait a second- how did he get on the table with a broken leg?" Ichigo yelled, alarmed and ran over to Naruto and tried to pick him up. However, Naruto was still angry with him for taking away the wonderful ramen that he had worked so hard to make so he snapped at Ichigo's finger and dashed off the counter to lay on the couch from which he glared at Ichigo defiantly who was almost gaping at the fox.

"How can he walk with that leg? And for that matter, how is he even awake? I put enough sedative in that water to knock him out for the rest of the day. Did he not drink it?" Ichigo muttered to himself.

"I don't know but I believe I've just discovered something very important about him." Rukia said ominously as she slowly walked over to stand in front of Naruto. Naruto's heart beat faster. Did she know something about his past? Did she know why he was like this? He looked nervously up at Rukia who was staring intensely at him and seemed to be nodding to herself. "Yes, there is no doubt in my mind. This fox… looks just like Chappy!" She squealed and glomped Naruto. Both Naruto and Ichigo stared incredulously at her, one eye twitching simultaneously.

Rukia continued, "See? Big, adorable eyes! Soft fur! And those giant ears just complete the image!" Naruto stared at her, aghast, but Ichigo looked contemplatively at him.

"I think I actually see it," He said contemplatively. "Those ears are abnormally long, aren't they? It is kind of rabbit like."

"Exactly!" Rukia said nodding happily and hugging Naruto tighter. "We should call her Chappy Jr.!" Naruto yelped. When did he become a girl? Luckily, or maybe unluckily for him, Ichigo seemed to hear his thoughts.

"We can't name it that! It just sounds stupid and we don't even know what gender it is!"

"…"

Both of them turned to look at Naruto who suddenly felt very cornered. He started to squirm out of Rukia's grip, but she just lifted him up, leaving his legs to dangle below him. He froze. _You did not just do what I think you did…_

"So is it a girl or a boy?" Rukia said, clueless and lifted Naruto higher.

"He's a boy." Ichigo said, also looking.

Naruto silently fumed, swearing violently in his mind and so red from embarrassment that he was sure it could be seen through his orange fur.

Rukia sighed sadly and put him down, "What are we going to name him then? He would have made a great Chappy Jr…"

Ichigo just shrugged but the empty ramen cup sitting on the table caught his eye. "How about Ramen?"

Naruto perked up a little from where he had been moping on the couch. Sure, it was unimaginative but he loved what he had been named after and it wasn't too far from his actual name either.

"That's such a boring name! We might as well name him Chappy Jr. if that's the alternative!" Rukia shouted at Ichigo, frowning and crossing her arms. Naruto could tell that he had to act now if he didn't want a horrible name. He raced over to stand in front of Ichigo and barked at him urgently with a hint of desperation.

Ichigo looked at him a little surprised before smirking at Rukia. "He likes it."

She sighed exasperatedly. "Fine. He can be Ramen."

Ichigo looked like he was about to gloat but was cut off when shrill, shrieking sound filled the air. Naruto cringed, once again cursing his heightened senses as Rukia dug a black phone out of her backpack.

"There's a hollow at the park!" She told Ichigo and pulled on a black glove with a flame design on it. Then she pulled back her hand and punched Ichigo in the face. Instead of flying backward, it looked like Ichigo duplicated when another orange haired teen flew out, leaving the original to fall over with a dull thud.

Ichigo winced when his body hit the ground before turning to glare at the one who had punched him. "Why can't you ever warn me first? Now I'm going to have bruises when I come back. How do I explain that?" He said angrily but was silenced when Rukia raised one hand, staring at Naruto.

Naruto was still looking confusedly at the Ichigo on the floor and then at the black robed one that had appeared out of nowhere. Rukia watched him intensely before gesturing for Ichigo to come closer to her. He did so hesitantly and she grabbed his arm, moving it to rest on top of the Naruto.

Now both of them were confused. Ichigo looked at Rukia like she was crazy but she just ignored him as she excitedly made Ichigo's hand pat Naruto's head, who quickly backed away from the obviously insane girl after Ichigo's arm wacked him a little too hard.

"What are you doing?" Ichigo said, pulling his arm out of her grasp.

Rukia took no notice of him and continued to study Naruto. "I can't sense any but it's definitely there." She muttered to herself and poked him.

Ichigo waved his hand in front of her face. "What isn't there?"

"His reiatsu," Rukia replied, pushing his hand away. "He could see while you are just a spirit which is impressive enough but he could also touch you which I've never heard of happening before. Dogs and other animals have been known to sense or see ghosts and Shinigami before but they can never actually affect the spirit. They would have to have a large amount of reiatsu to be able to do that."

She paused and stared curiously at Naruto. "But I can't sense any reiatsu from him. There is just barely enough to be a living being. So how can he touch you?"

"I don't know. Maybe you can't sense energy well when you don't have any yourself?" Ichigo said, shrugging before suddenly remembering the hollow alarm that was still shrieking. "We forgot the hollow!"

Rukia stood up; suddenly alert, but she did send one last look at Naruto before putting the matter aside for later. "You should be more observant, Ichigo!" She chastised.

"What? _I_ should be more observant? You're the real Shinigami here!"

"Actually, you are the only Shinigami here. No powers, remember?" Rukia said as they dashed out of the door. Ichigo just growled at her, and soon enough they were out of sight.

_What just happened…? _Naruto thought, wide eyed. What the heck was reiatsu? And now his ears hurt because of that hollow thing. These people even thought they were death gods! Why did he always get stuck with all the crazies?

He groaned and looked sadly in the direction of his empty ramen cup. However, the open door seemed to be beckoning to him. _Freedom from the crazies!_ He grinned, and charged.

Bang!

Naruto quickly sat up. Hopefully no one would notice that head shaped indent in the wall. Stepping over to stand in front of the doorway, he carefully walked through. Once safely past the dangerous wall, he grinned again and barked proudly, ignoring the subconscious thought that his voice should be forming words.

_Here I go!_

**Yo! This chapter was a little later then I wanted it to be but my family went on a vacation to Canada for the weekend. To any Canadian readers, your country is beautiful! **

**Anyways, the trip was a blessing in disguise for this story because I have had over six hours to just sit and type. Sadly, no internet connection too. These past few days have been killing me. No fanfiction for Chaos… T-T**

**On to things that actually concern this story! Gasp! Naruto miraculously recovered! That was Kyuubi's chakra reappearing. Told you it would happen. But why haven't we seen the great rabbit fox himself? And why didn't it heal Naruto's leg earlier? That's for you to find out and me to laugh evilly about until you do.**

**I was laughing to myself as I wrote that part about naming Naruto. The ears are Kyuubi's fault. All shall bow down before the great rabbit fox! In a sidenote, I recently got caught up with the latest manga updates and I loved it! I am going to make Kyuubi's nicer side work for me. :D Giant baby monsters: Kishimoto has made this possible.**

**Review and know that you made an aspiring author burst into tears of joy. Flame and know that I'm using it to boil my ramen.**


	4. Chapter 4: A Friend

**Yo! Sorry about the late update, school does not listen to me when I beg for mercy. But it's here now! **

**I don't own anything except for the super cuddly Naruto fox. :3**

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><p><strong>Chapter 4: A Friend<strong>

_Maybe I didn't think this out enough…_

"Come on, little guy. I'm not going to hurt you." The man in front of Naruto said as he cautiously approached the fox. If the situation weren't so serious then Naruto would have laughed. _Yeah right, because that tranquilizer gun and rope is for "peaceful purposes". What? Do you think I was born yesterday?_ Naruto paused, considering the wording of that. _Okay, I don't have any memories before yesterday but I'm still smarter than that!_

How did he keep getting into these weird situations? He had just been strolling along, minding his own business as he tried to follow Ichigo and Rukia so he could find out what a hollow is when these idiots showed up. Apparently, people don't particularly like it when a fox the size of a large dog walks down the street. The ketchup on his mouth from that hotdog he stole might not have helped. Anyways, someone freaked out and called animal control on him. And here he was, cornered in a dark, ominous alleyway like any type of stereotypical situation you would read about in a manga.

"You jump at him from the right and I'll get him from the left." Stupid Number One said to his partner. "One, two, three!"

_Did you honestly think that would work?_ Naruto thought in a blank tone and jumped on to Stupid Number Two's back when he lunged at him, leaving Stupid Number One to slam into the brick wall. _Ouch, you should try harder not to ram your head into hard objects. You need all the brain cells you can get! _**(1)**

He smirked down at the unconscious Stupid Number One and Stupid Number Two who had yet to figure out that he was on his back. _Well, it's been nice talking to you but I've got to run! See ya later, losers! _Sticking his tongue out at the animal control officers for added effect, he dashed out of the alleyway before Stupid Number Two could figure out what that weight on his back was.

Naruto was cackling evilly as he imagined the look on those officers' faces when he suddenly collided with something small and soft.

"Ah!"

He could only blink in confusion as little arms were suddenly thrown around him in a surprisingly strong bear hug. "Doggy! Pretty doggy!"

_Eh? _He looked down at the little girl who was hugging him. _What are you talking about?_

She continued to babble, oblivious to Naruto's thoughts. "Pretty doggy! Will Doggy let me ride her?" Not waiting for any type of reply, she began to climb up him like a little, pink clad monkey.

_Huh? Hey- ow, ow, don't pull on my fur! _Naruto shook his head and ran around in a circle, trying to get the little girl off but not wanting to actually hurt her. However, his efforts just made the little girl laugh.

"Faster, Doggy! Faster!" She squealed delightedly and wrapped her arms around his neck. _You want faster? Here you go! _He jumped around in circles, bucking like an angered horse as he began to grin despite himself. There was a jolt of pain from his leg but he barely even noticed it as he twisted and leaped, delighting in making the little girl laugh.

He finally let himself rest after a few minutes of bouncing around, the action leaving him panting for breath with a few winces of pain from his leg. He really shouldn't have been moving so much after having his leg broken, even with his miraculous recovery. His little rider didn't seem too happy to have her 'Doggy' stop but she seemed to understand that the fox wasn't feeling too well at the moment.

"Doggy? Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?" She asked, climbing off of Naruto marching in front of him to stare at him, inches away from his face. **(2) **

He quickly moved his head back further so their noses were no longer touching. That worried, jade-colored stare was almost frightening if it weren't for the fact that it was on a six year olds' face. In fact, it almost seemed familiar. If he really concentrated, then he could see a different set of green eyes that had that worried expression that somehow seemed motherly while having an undertone of threatening accompanied by a lecturing female voice.

"_Did you get yourself hurt again_?_" _The voice said in an exasperated tone. "_Seriously Naruto, what am I going to do with you? How are you going to accomplish your goal if you just train yourself to death?"_

"_I need to become stronger! I'll never be able to catch him if I don't" _He didn't know how but he knew that this voice was his. Even though there was no logical explanation for how he, a fox, was able to speak in a way other then through barking, there wasn't a doubt in his mind that this voice belonged to him.

"_Naruto… What you really need to do is…_Wake up, Doggy!" The voice yelled, suddenly more childish and painfully loud. Naruto was yanked back to reality, quite literally, with an insistent tugging on his ear and the continued chastising from the little girl.

"You weren't listening, were you? You looked like you fell asleep right there, like a zombie!" The girl said, trying to imitate his 'sleeping zombie' expression. Naruto would have chuckled but he now had a headache and he also had no idea how a chuckle would sound when made by a fox or if it would just frighten the girl. Instead, he gave an encouraging smile that looked slightly like a grimace from an outsiders view. However, it served its purpose and the little girl immediately brightened and relinquished her hold on Naruto's ear.

"Anyways, I was telling you about how I want to become a doctor when I grow up so fixing you should be no problem!" She said cheerfully before gaining a competitive look in her eyes. "You'll see. One day, people will call me Dr. Watanabe Midori!" She turned to grin widely at him and Naruto gulped. "I can practice on you, Doggy!" Why did it look like her eyes were flaming? How the heck could a little girl look that menacing?

He started to scoot away from the overly eager girl but ended up wincing when his hurt leg hit a piece of trash laying on the ground. Unfortunately for him, Midori saw his wince and eagerly started to observe his hurt leg with no small amount of poking thrown in, to Naruto's great dismay.

"So you're leg is hurt? How did it get hurt, Doggy? You should be more careful. What would have happened if I wasn't here?" _My leg wouldn't have been hurting from running around. _He thought, slightly amused by the little girl who was currently unwrapping his bandages so she could "make it better". She quickly rewrapped it, being surprisingly gentle, and tied it off with a big bow and a pat.

"There you go, Doggy! It's a good thing that I learned how to tie my shoelaces or else you're leg would still have been hurting!"_ It actually does help._ He thought, a little surprised as he walked around in a slow circle and gave a lopsided grin to the proud Midori who was still talking about how it had been really hard to learn how to tie shoes. "-And there's this weird thing with bunnies and it's reeaally complicated but I practiced hard and Mommy helped me with it so I finally got it! And Daddy was so proud that he promised to take me out to ice cream! But I can't find Mommy or Daddy…" She said, wilting slightly.

_An ice cream shop? I think I saw one of those earlier._ He nudged Midori with his nose. She looked up questioningly at him, eyes shiny and wide. "You can help?"

Naruto nodded and she instantly brightened and threw her arms around him. "Thank you Doggy!" She told him happily with her face buried in his orange fur. "So which way do we go?"

He sniffed the air carefully, trying to filter through the hundreds of different scents on the wind. The scent of pollution and different foods hit him first and made him grimace before pushing on and trying to sort through the food smells. Finally, after a minute of separating and identifying the different scents, he began to walk towards the sweet scent of vanilla and chocolate with Midori following hesitantly behind him. The loud noises and smells soon hit them and Naruto paused, looking at the rushing people who towered over Midori and himself. He crouched down to the ground and glanced expectantly at Midori.

"You want me to ride you?" She asked, surprised and sounding very delighted before the look turned to worry. "Won't that hurt your leg?"

Naruto started to shrug but decided against it when he saw Midori's concerned face. Her face lit up with happiness when he shook his head and she wasted no time in climbing up on to him.

As soon as he was sure that the little girl was holding on tightly, he took off, dashing down the sidewalk and weaving through crowds of startled and shocked people. Excited whispers spread around them but Naruto gave them no mind. He was in his element. The loud noises and strong smells that had been attacking his senses since he woke up seemed to be melting away. He could barely even remember that he was carrying Midori. All that he could think of was the wind rushing through his fur as he sped towards a destination.

The world was blurred around him and he could see just out of his vision flames streaking along beside him, dancing in the wind. Lightning crackled through the air as raindrops flew through the air. Everything felt right, like he had finally found everything that he was searching for, but he also felt like he was forgetting something. Something important. He started to slow down, fighting the surreal feeling.

Time sped up again. The shocked whispers were even louder now and the scent of vanilla was stronger than before. He could feel Midori tugging on his ear, asking what was wrong. He just shook his head at her and crouched down again to let her off. They were in front of what looked like an ice cream stand, making Naruto wonder exactly how fast he had run considering the fact that he couldn't even see where they had been before.

"Midori?" Someone gasped a few feet away from them.

"Mommy!" Midori yelled happily and jumped into the arms of woman who looked like an older version of the girl and a man who Naruto assumed was her father quickly joined them.

"Where have you been? We were looking all over for you! I was so worried when I looked back and you weren't walking behind us! You can't just wander off like that! Something could have happened to you! What if you hadn't been able to find us?" Midori's mother scolded to her daughter even though it was obvious that she had been panicking to find her daughter earlier.

Midori hung her head, ashamed, before remembering that she had to tell her parents about her new friend. "But I was okay! Doggy helped me find you!"

"Doggy?"

Midori nodded her head excitedly and wiggled out of her mother's grasp to run over to Naruto and hug him. "See? Doggy let me ride her and she went really fast!" Midori exclaimed, oblivious to how the blood had drained from her parent's faces when they saw Naruto.

"Midori? Honey, come over here." Her mother said slowly, not taking her eyes off of Naruto. When Midori didn't come back immediately her father added in a more forceful tone, "Midori, step away from the fox."

"Why?" She asked, confused about how her parents seemed to not like Naruto but she did what she said and walked over to her parents. Her mother immediately wrapped her arms around Midori in a both comforting and restraining way.

"That fox is dangerous. He could hurt you very easily." Her father said, still watching Naruto as he slowly brought a cell phone out of his pocket.

"But Doggy wouldn't do that! Doggy's my friend!"

"I'm sorry Honey, but you can't be friends with a fox. They are wild animals that could turn around and attack you at any time." Midori's mother said calmingly but Midori wouldn't listen and tried to slip out of her mother's arms and failed.

Her father dialed a number and told the mother, "I'm calling the police right now. They should send a professional by to collect the fox soon."

Naruto, who had been silently watching the entire discussion silently, scoffed and walked towards Midori making her parents tense, her mother tightened her grip on the girl and her father looked like he was ready to jump in front of the two but didn't want to provoke Naruto. He ignored them and continued to walk until he was in front of his friend. Then he bent down and licked Midori's cheek, causing the girl to smile up at him brightly even though she still looked like she was about to cry. _You have good parents, kid._ He thought, turning around and walking away from the family, not even looking at the parents' reaction.

Their words had hurt but it didn't feel as bad as he thought it should. He had already been expecting their reaction to him. He was a fox, a dangerous animal who could attack anyone, enemy or friend. People were frightened by him and sometimes translated that fear into scorn and contempt.

_Well, I guess I'll just have to change that then._ Naruto smirked, looking up at the clear blue sky._ Nothing's impossible. I'll show them that even a fox can be trustworthy. I'll become someone that people would be proud to call their friend. Even without memories, I'll always move forward no matter what!_

…_Now where the heck am I?_

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><p><strong>And that's the end of chapter four! XD Finally, I love writing but sometimes it makes me want to bang my head on a wall. <strong>

1. **Being a little hypocritical, aren't we Naruto?**

**2. One of my little midget cousins also does this. (She's four. So cute!) She'll sit down on my lap and stare at me with her nose touching my nose. It's kind of scary...**

**Don't hate Midori's parents. Realistically, a lot of people would freak out if they're six year old daughter was hugging a really big fox. ****Midori= green**

**You got more flashbacks this time, and one paragraph of emo Naruto! And you got to see the beginning of the end there. Just kidding! Or am I telling the truth? :D**

**I actually meant for the next chapter to be a part of this chapter but Midori wasn't going to let me give her a little part. No, she had to dominate the entire chapter!**

**Reviews make chapters come faster. I actually read my reviews to get into a writing mood. I love responding to your questions and being as mysterious as possible! ^-^**


	5. Chapter 5: Crazy equals Hats?

**Homework… Lack of sleep… Powers… weakening… I don't own anything…**

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><p><strong>Chapter 5: Crazy= …Hat?<strong>

Ten minutes, three stolen hotdogs, and one escape from the police later, Naruto was walking down a nondescript street, panting from exhaustion. All he wanted to do right now was find somewhere no one could find him, lay down, and fall into a coma. The pain from his leg had gotten worse and Midori's carefully tied bow had come undone leaving his bandages to hang off his leg limply with more than a few spots of blood dotting them. He didn't feel like he could walk faster then a slow limp, much less run away from the animal control officers if they found him. He needed to find somewhere safe to sleep and he needed to find it soon.

There weren't many people walking down this street which was surprising after the crowded main street, and the ones that were just gave him a curious glance, shrugged, and went on their way, almost as if they were used to seeing even stranger sights then a bleeding fox limping down the road.

He was about halfway down the street when he noticed a tingling sensation. He didn't even pay attention to it at first but as he continued further along the street it started to feel like something was pulling him along. It was a strange feeling, almost intoxicating, and something inside him seemed to resonate with this strange energy that was radiating through the air. Without even realizing it, he started to walk towards one house in particular. He was completely dazed but a small part of him was yelling from under the fog of confusion. _What's happening?_ He thought, his mind sluggish. The part of him that had been protesting was slowly disappearing.

If he had been completely control of his mind at that moment he would have wondered why the protesting voice was that of a human's but all he could do at the moment was continue to walk towards the source of this intoxicating energy and listen as the voice got fainter and fainter, as if the human in his mind was far away from him yet at the same time he felt a different kind of voice seem to rise up in him, growling ferociously at the human voice. With this new inner battle inside of him, he didn't even notice someone creeping up on him until all of a sudden there was a loud whack and the side of his head hurt.

"You shouldn't hit the fox, Jinta." Naruto heard a little girl say from behind him as he glared at the red haired kid holding a broom who just glared right back at him. Sure, he would still be stumbling around like a drunk from that weird energy if the kid hadn't hit him but that broom had hurt! Then this kid looked at him like it was his fault!

"I don't care! I told him to go away and he didn't listen. That's a reason to hit him!" Jinta yelled at a meek looking girl with her hair in pigtails and what looked like a perpetual blush on her face. Then he turned around and glared at Naruto again before the kid ran at him, broom held above his head like a bat ready to come down upon Naruto's head once more.

Maybe it was because of the earlier fight between himself that the kid had interrupted, or maybe it was just how bad this day had already been going before that weird energy that he could still feel on the edges of his senses. Either way, the simple fact of the matter was that Naruto was seriously annoyed and this kid had just hit him with a broom. Sure, he could always do the honorable, polite thing and just walk away but where was the fun in that? Or maybe he could test out these new teeth and claws? It was a simple decision and Naruto decided quickly. This kid was going down.

Naruto growled low in his throat and dodged the broom before lunging at Jinta before he could react. His eyes widened when he saw Naruto about to land on him and with speed that seemed unnatural for a kid his age, he swung the broom in a last ditch effort.

It seemed like luck was siding with Jinta today or maybe Lady Luck just hated Naruto with a passion because the clumsily thrown broom managed to clip his broken leg, causing him to suddenly collapse to the ground, aggravating his injury even further.

_Seriously? What are the chances of that happening?_ Naruto shouted angrily in his mind.

"Huh?" Jinta said confused as to why his opponent had suddenly collapsed to the ground from a little hit to the leg but he recovered quickly and smirked arrogantly. "Ha! I beat him! Did you see that, Ururu? He went right down!"

Ururu just sighed sadly as she watched her friend proceed to poke the downed fox who looked seriously ticked off. _Oh Jinta… _She thought and waited for the inevitable which came just a moment later.

"Ow!" He yelped, clutching his hand as he quickly backed away from the fox that had snapped at his hand.

_You deserved that_. Naruto thought angrily as he pushed himself off the ground with a small groan._ Taunting an injured enemy. Even I wouldn't have done that during the-_ Naruto's train of thought stopped suddenly. During what? What had he been doing?

He tried to follow the memory and quickly flinched and left it alone. He hadn't remembered or seen anything but he had smelled and heard. Whatever he had been doing, the sharp scent of blood had filled the air and someone had been crying. And screaming. In fact, it hadn't been just one or a few voices. No, it was the sound of hundreds. Hundreds of people crying, hundreds of people screaming, hundreds of people just trying to stay alive. _An army,_ a voice whispered.

An army of mothers, fathers, friends, all fighting to stay alive yet never running away from what might as well have been certain death. But why? Why hadn't they tried to salvage what was left of them and leave behind that hell? The voice didn't answer but he could feel a sense of desperation and guilt weighing down upon it. He pushed for an answer one more time before finally giving up for now and returning to the present, but not without a shiver that ran down his spine and left him feeling very cold despite the bright and cheery sun beating down on him.

"Grr!" Jinta growled as he swung his broom at him once more and Naruto absentmindedly dodged out of the way again just like he had been doing for the past minute. Wait, what?

He looked around him as he dodged from Jinta once more without even thinking about it. It seems like he had kept fighting with the kid without even thinking about it. But now that he was consciously fighting him, he noticed something weird about the way he was dodging. He was going much faster then he would have thought possible even if his legs were fully healed and it didn't really feel like he was running out of the way when he dodged. It was more like he was taking a very big step and ending up ten feet away from where he expected to be. Frowning slightly, he concentrated on the feeling only to find himself suddenly dodging normally. And of course that left him standing right in the path of an incoming broom like an idiot. He cringed in anticipation of the oncoming pain when out of nowhere a flash of green appeared in front of him.

"I think that's enough now." A man's voice said casually and Naruto looked up to see a man with dirty blond hair and some type of weird green bucket hat on his head was standing in front of him, holding the shocked Jinta's broom back. The man let go of the broom and turned around to face Naruto, a paper fan appearing out of nowhere and into his hand. "And who would you be?"

Naruto paled. That was obviously an insane man's smile on his face. Plus, he was talking to a fox like he expected it to answer him! Naruto was a fox and even he knew that was crazy! And you definitely would have to be crazy to wear something as ugly as that bucket hat out in public.

"Well?" The lunatic said expectantly, his hat leaving the upper half of his face and his eyes in shadows. Naruto gulped and started to slowly back away hoping that the crazy man wouldn't notice.

"Fine then, if you're so shy then I'll just have to introduce myself first," He chuckled deviously. "I am the humble owner of this shop, Urahara Kisuke!" He gestured dramatically with his arms and opened his eyes to see the fox's expression only to catch a glimpse of a cloud of dust and a swiftly retreating dot of orange in the distance. "Eh?"

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><p><em>Safe!<em> Naruto practically cried from relief. Why did he have to attract all of these lunatics? Someone up there obviously hated him. He sighed tiredly. At least there was no way for this day to get any worse. What could possibly be worse then almost becoming road kill, being drugged, having his ramen TAKEN AWAY FROM HIM, or constantly being chased around by escaped psychos while having flashbacks of what looked like a tragic past?

"RAAAAAAA!"

Naruto slammed his head against the ground.

"Aim for the head, Ichigo! The head!"

"You don't need to remind me again!"

_Of course, we can't forget the circus._ Naruto thought exasperatedly. _Might as well get this over with…_

He ran to where the loud roaring sound was coming from down the street, noticing how no one else seemed to be alarmed by roar that definitely seemed to belong to a bloodthirsty beast. _And now everyone is deaf. What's up next?_

He turned the corner just in time to almost lose his nose when a giant black and white monster flew past him. The monster got back up on its feet and roared again letting Naruto get a full view of its appearance. _I can't even find it in myself to be surprised anymore. Whose idea was it to make a giant monster frog-duck?_

The monster frog-duck hopped down the road to attack a floating Ichigo and snapped its beak filled with shark-like teeth at him while simultaneously trying to kick at him with a long webbed foot. Rukia stood on the ground near Naruto looking ridiculously normal and out of place in her school uniform.

"Ramen!" She shouted, surprised and ran to meet him. She glomped him and happily rubbed her face against his ears despite his best efforts to get away from her.

"Ramen?" Ichigo asked from his spot fifty feet up in the air and stabbing the frog in the heart.

"Get back to work! It's the head not the heart!" Rukia yelled at him, not even looking up from rubbing her face against Naruto who had given up in getting away.

"I'm working on it! Annoying death gods…"

"I heard that!"

He scowled and stabbed the frog-duck through the mask and wiped frog-duck ashes off his clothes before jumping down to run to them. "How do you think he got out? I mean, it's not like he could have opened the door so someone must have… Never mind."

"You left the door open, didn't you?"

"It was an emergency!"

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><p><strong>Tada! Ugh… I'm extremely sorry for the late update. School… so much… school… -twitches from homework-induced coma-<strong>

**Anyways, now we begin to see a little more of Naruto's past and some of his powers! If any of you spot an error or just see some worse than usual writing then PLEASE tell me! I wrote more than half of this late at night and I edited it while I could barely keep my eyes open. I will love and appreciate all the help I can get from you guys so don't worry about offending me.**

**Please review… -collapses-**


	6. Chapter 6: Visit to the Vet

**Helloooo! If you know anything about the world, then you can probably figure out that I'm American, the greatest amount of Japanese I can speak is calling people an idiot, and there is no way that I am a Japanese mangaka with tons of money. Therefore, I don't own Naruto or Bleach. Sorry, piggybank. You'll have to keep going hungry.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 6: Visit to the Vet<strong>

The dreaded day had come far too soon.

"Come on, Ramen! You're going to have to come out eventually!" Ichigo yelled as he looked behind the couch.

_Not if I have anything to say about it! _Naruto thought, ducking under the table when Ichigo ran past. _I'm perfectly healthy! No need for the doc to look at me!_

He peeked his head out hesitantly and looked around._ Back to the couch I go!_ He started to creep across the room when suddenly there was a hand holding on to his scruff.

"Ha! I told you I would find you!" Ichigo exclaimed, his change in strength from his Shinigami training showing as he lifted Naruto off the floor by his scruff. "Now let's go get in the car."

_I didn't want to do this but you leave me no choice…_ Naruto sighed and looked up to affix Ichigo with the strongest puppy dog look he could muster. _Come on Ichigo, buddy. You don't want to take me to the vet. You don't want to take me to the vet. You really don't…_

Ichigo shifted uncomfortably under Naruto's eyes. "Sorry, I really wouldn't take you if you didn't need it but I don't know much about fox anatomy and with how fast you're healing I need to make sure that you aren't healing with the bones in the wrong place."

Naruto started squirming desperately when it became obvious that the puppy eyes weren't working but Ichigo quickly caught on to his plan and tossed him over his shoulder while keeping him in a type of half bear hug and ran to jump in the waiting car, only letting go of Naruto once the door was shut. Naruto tried to pull open the handle with his teeth and glared at the door when it didn't work . _Stupid childproof locks…_

"Ready to go?" Ichigo's dad asked smiling idiotically from behind the wheel. He had just been returning home from his medical conference out of town when they had gotten back after fighting the frog-duck Hollow. Isshin had taken one look at the fox before sobbing to a giant poster of Ichigo's mother and asking where he had gone wrong in raising his son while trying to discretely kick Ichigo in the head. It hadn't taken much persuasion for him to accept Naruto into the family as his "new and improved son".

It had been very entertaining to watch Ichigo beat up his father.

Yuzu had fallen in love with Naruto at first sight. It was hard work to escape the over excited girl. Karin had simply taken one look at him, shrugged, and helped Ichigo in kicking Isshin while asking what was for dinner. Naruto liked that kid.

But neither had helped him this morning when Ichigo took one look at his nearly healed leg and asked his dad for a ride to the veterinarian. He had agreed and practically skipped off to get the car ready; completely oblivious to the death glare Naruto was giving him from his hiding spot.

"Okay Ichigoooo!" He yelled as he turned the key and revved the engine. "Off to the animal doctors so we can make sure your illegal fox is healthy!"

"I already told you he wasn't illegal!" Ichigo said, whacking his dad.

"Have no fear, son! I will continue to support you in all your illegal ventures!" He said, giving Ichigo a thumbs up and dodging his son's fist while trying to hit Ichigo with his foot. He succeeded and Ichigo sputtered indignantly before returning a punch. Soon enough they had full out brawl going. Naruto sighed and looked out the window as the car swerved down the street.

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><p>"Farewell Ichigo! I'll be back to get you later after I clean the blood stains out of my car!" Isshin said, looking way too cheerfully with his black eye and bleeding nose.<p>

Ichigo shrugged as best as he could while he was trying to drag the protesting Naruto out of the car. "See you later." He said uninterestedly.

Isshin looked at him with a hurt look on his face before dramatically sobbing and driving away as he cried to a smaller version of the poster that he had pulled out of nowhere, "Oh Masaki! Our son does not love me!"

Ichigo glared at him, exasperated, and Naruto took the opportunity to break out of his grip. _Hahaha! Freedom!_ He laughed as he ran away from Ichigo. _You'll never take me alive! No stupid veterinarian visit for me! Haha- Wait a second… _He looked around his surroundings to find three pairs of eyes staring at him, one of them belonging to a sad looking dog with a cast on his right leg and a cone around his neck and the other two belonging to what looked like a receptionist and the dog's owner. As he was staring with disbelief and horror at the waiting room he was standing in, a hand clamped onto his scruff and hoisted him into the air.

"Got you!" Ichigo smirked at him. "But it looks like I wasn't needed. You got to the vet's by yourself."

_What? Nooooooo!_ Naruto cried while Ichigo ignored his whining and dragged the fox up to the check in counter.

"Hello? I scheduled an appointment for my fox, Ramen?"

"Name?" The receptionist asked, smiling sweetly at Ichigo.

"Kurosaki Ichigo."

The receptionist typed something in the computer. "Dr. Maeda should be waiting for you in the exam room on the right."

Ichigo thanked her and started to head over to the room she had gestured to. Naruto, sensing his impending torture, squirmed even harder then before with all of the energy had left. But it wasn't meant to be as Ichigo managed to pulled him through the door with a grunt.

The room was brightly lit, the light gleaming off of a steel examining table in the middle and revealing the figure of a woman in a white lab coat washing her hands in a sink. She turned around and smiled at them.

"Hello! You must be Mr. Kurosaki, right?" She asked, shaking his hand energetically.

"Uh, yeah." Ichigo replied awkwardly. "But you can just call me Ichigo. Mr. Kurosaki makes me sound like my dad." Ichigo and Naruto both paused in what they were doing and shuddered.

"Alright!" She leaned down and patted Naruto's head. "Then you must be Ramen! Awfully orange aren't you? I don't get many animals here with pretty fur like yours!"

_How much coffee have you been drinking?_ Naruto edged as far away as he could from the still smiling veterinarian. He stopped for a second before adding in a slightly offended tone. _And it's not pretty. It's just… fluffy._

She gave him one more pat to the head before suddenly grabbing his scruff and quickly pulling him up onto the steel table. "Could you please hold onto him while I examine him?"

"Sure…" Ichigo said slowly, a little stunned at the sudden show of strength from the overly perky veterinarian. He grabbed onto Naruto, who was still recovering from being tossed onto the table like a sack of potatoes.

_Give me a little more warning next time! _He grumbled to himself and watched Dr. Maeda nervously as she pulled on a pair of plastic gloves. She smiled at him, way too cheerfully in his opinion, and proceeded to poke, pull, and basically just manhandle him in the name of his "health".

"So Ichigo," She said casually as she opened his jaw as far as it would go and looked at his teeth and gums. "Have you thought of getting Ramen neutered?"

Time froze for a second as that sentence registered in the two males' minds.

_What!_ Naruto snapped his mouth shut and looked anxiously at Dr. Maeda. _You're joking, right? Please tell me you are joking!_

Oblivious to his thoughts, She looked expectantly at Ichigo who Naruto also turned to stare at pleadingly and terrified.

"Er, I haven't really thought about it…" Ichigo said, feeling extremely nervous with both of them staring at him.

"You should consider it. There isn't a lot of space for foxes around here so any kits that Ramen could end up fathering will have no place to go." She said with a serious look on her face.

_Hold on! Don't just assume that I'm going to run around having babies everywhere! I'm only sixteen! _Naruto growled angrily at her before turning back to Ichigo._ You believe me, Ichigo, don't you? I'll be a good fox! I promise! _

"I... don't think I'll do it." Ichigo said the last part quickly and looked at Dr. Maeda hesitantly. She had a disappointed expression on her face as she replied.

"It's your choice and I won't try to dissuade you if you don't want to have it done on Ramen but if you change your mind then remember that the offer still stands."

_Hahaha! Take that! You can't neuter this fox! I knew you would come through for me, Ichigo!_

Dr. Maeda was strangely subdued for the rest of the check up, looking very creepily disappointed that she couldn't neuter Naruto. She x-rayed him, which he didn't resist for so he could get away from the veterinarian as fast as possible. Soon enough, they were standing in the lobby with Naruto itching to run away from this horrific building as soon as he could but Ichigo's hand holding onto him kept him there.

"All his bones are growing right. You did a very good job on wrapping him up." She paused, considering her next words carefully. "But there was something strange about it."

"Strange?" Ichigo asked, half way concerned and halfway annoyed thanks to Naruto who was trying to drag him through the doorway.

"Yes, Ramen should have been much more injured then he is and it should have taken him a longer time to heal, a week at the least. Instead, he is now fully healed from what you said was a broken leg and a massive loss of blood in only two days. I've never heard of any type of animal healing this quickly. It's quite strange."

Ichigo was silent, thinking about how it seemed a little too coincidental that he became some type of supernatural grim reaper and he finds a unnaturally fast healing fox only a week after. He opened his mouth to ask more about Naruto when the said fox final managed to wrench himself out of Ichigo's grasp. With a bark of triumph he jumped into the waiting car that he recognized to be the one that had brought him here.

Only to find himself nose to nose with Ichigo's father.

"Well hello there, new and improved son. I'm glad to see you too." Isshin said, grinning at him. Seeing the awkward and slightly fearful look in Naruto's eyes, he hugged the fox suddenly, knocking the breath out of him with the sound of a dying cat. "Do not worry, weird fox son of mine! Daddy is here now to protect you from the veternerians and the meanie Ichigo who dragged you here!" A foot slammed into his head.

"Goat face! Don't kill the fox!"

* * *

><p><strong>Ugh. I didn't really like this chapter too much. It was necessary and a little funny to write but it just seems really awkward to me. Especially since I actually do know a lot about veterinarians and how they work. My aunt and uncle are veterinarians so I practically grew up just learning about how they do things and how they treat the animals. Along with that, I've had two dogs in the past and I currently have one. I think I'm kind of drawing on them and the experiences I've had with my pets and other people's pets when I'm writing how Naruto acts in foxy form. In my mind, he is like a cross between how a cat acts and a lot of a dog's personality and actions.<strong>

**I'm excited to write the next chapter. The plot gets more exciting after this and I've kind of had this idea in my head since the beginning of planning this story.**

**I'm giving you a type of quiz this chapter. It only has three questions.**

**Anyone recognize Dr. Maeda? Want to tell me where or when I got the idea? This is kind of a trick question.**

**This one is easy. What little piece of memory did Naruto recall this chapter? Don't look back! I want to see if anyone noticed it but I think it is a little obvious.**

**Could you tell me some of your favorite songs or artists? Or maybe the weirdest song you have. I've been on a John Mayers hype for the past week because of one fic I read. And I don't think anyone can trump this! I have the theme song for Pokemon in English! If you actually listen to the lyrics you'll realize that it actually is like some weird love song... But it has a guitar solo! Try and beat that!**

**Please review! It helps me kill off some of the plot bunnies who have been breeding in my head! They're multiplying… O.O**


	7. Chapter 7: Of Friendship and Bacon

**Masked Bard of Chaos reporting for more mayhem! I don't own anything.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 7: Of Friendship, Bacon, and Tragic Pasts<strong>

A few days passed without much excitement. Being tackled out of nowhere by Isshin and seeing Ichigo run around in his spirit form had become normal for Naruto. Most days, he would stay home while Ichigo and the girls went to school and Isshin worked in the clinic part of the house.

The before-mentioned orange fox was currently engaging in one of his favorite activities: hunting down that annoying lion stuffed animal.

"Good foxy…" Kon said slowly, backing away from Naruto. He felt his back hit the wall behind him and he chuckled nervously. "What have I ever done to you?"

Naruto growled menacingly and Kon winced. "Okay, so I might have told Ichigo where you were hiding that one time when he was trying to give you a bath. But you really did stink! It was like something died!" He paused. "I'm not really helping my case here, am I?"

**A few tortured screaming filled moments later…**

Naruto walked out of Ichigo's closet with a content grin on his face as he spat out a clump of stuffing. Ignoring Kon's wails, he walked downstairs to continue his morning tradition of stealing Ichigo's breakfast. There was no way he was going to eat that bland dog food.

He sniffed the air. _Bacon and eggs… I'm going to be eating good today!_ He peeked around the corner and spotted his target sitting on top of the table, vulnerable and just begging to be eaten. The only obstacle in his way was sitting in front of his target; fork in hand and about to eat the bacon.

_Not today, buddy! That bacon is mine!_ He backed up as far as he could, then he turned to stare at the bacon with a look of determination on his face. _One order of bacon coming right up…_

He bolted across the room, getting closer and closer to Ichigo by the millisecond and at the last possible moment he pushed all his strength into his crouched legs and leaped. _Uzumaki Flying Bacon Steal Technique!_

His teeth closed down on the bacon and he grinned triumphantly. _Success!_

His moment of victory only lasted half a second before he soared over the length of the table and ended up impacting with the floor and rolling a few feet before he finally came to a stop. But it did nothing to lower his feeling of happiness and accomplishment as he sat there, happily chewing on his prize. Only once he had swallowed the last bite did he look up to see Ichigo's expression.

Usually he would be angry, or at the very least, annoyed. But instead of the usual reactions, Ichigo just looked up, slightly surprised like he hadn't really been paying attention. And he didn't even have some type of delayed reaction. Just a calm, "Oh, it's just you, Ramen." Then he walked over and gave him his plate of food and walked away!

_What just happened…? _Naruto thought to himself, stunned. As annoying and nagging that Ichigo was, he was also his friend. And when you are an amnesiac fox with the worst of luck, you don't have many friends.

So you have to take care of the ones that you do have.

…Right after you take care of those bacon and eggs.

* * *

><p><em>Ichigo! Ichigo! Ichiiiiiigooooo!<em> Naruto stopped suddenly. _I just sounded like Ichigo's dad… But I do it more awesomely! Yeah… _He returned to poking Ichigo with his paw._ So are you going to tell me why you are so ungrumpy lately? Have you turned over a new leaf? Realized that your grouchy attitude was not nice to everyone around you and your amazing fox companion? Are you going to give me more food? Bacon is good and all but how about some ram-_

"Ramen. Please stop poking my face." Ichigo said.

_See? That's what I mean! You are never this calm when I'm annoying you! Your creepy calmness is kind of freaking me out! What if you're an Ichigo clone? I need to make sure of these things! _Naruto whined to him, flailing dramatically and without meaning to, smacking Ichigo's face with his paw.

"Stop that!" Ichigo said angrily, his composure breaking for a second as he pushed Naruto away from him. However, it only lasted for a second before a look of guilt crossed his face. "Sorry about that, Ramen. I've just… been thinking a lot lately. Can you leave me alone for a little bit while I finish my homework?"

Then the most terrifying thing that Naruto had ever experienced happened.

Ichigo smiled.

Naruto gaped, staring in shock at where Ichigo had been even after he walked away from him. This situation had just leveled up from "Girl Dumped Him" to "The Apocalypse is Coming! We're all going to DIIIEEEE!"

Giving him his food? Good. Strange, but still good.

Only getting angry after having his face poked steadily for half an hour while he was trying to do his homework? Very strange, check for batteries in case he somehow got switched with a robot. Or a creepy good twin.

Smiling at Naruto? There was only one possible explanation.

Naruto nodded to himself sadly. _That must have been one really hot girl…_

* * *

><p>Naruto lounged across the couch, stomach full from food that Yuzu and sometimes Isshin snuck to him under the table when they thought that Ichigo wasn't looking, and utterly content with the world as Yuzu scratched that itchy spot behind his ear. The blissful feeling ended far too soon in his opinion, when a polite knocking sounded through the air.<p>

_Whazzit? _Naruto slurred, sleepily blinking his eyes as Yuzu got up to answer the door.

"Hello?" A hesitant female voice said, sounding more like a question then a greeting. Naruto sat up and looked over the top of the couch to see an orange haired girl standing out on the porch. _Whoa! She has Ichigo hair! _

"Hey, Orihime!" Ichigo greeted and she instantly looked happier, probably because she knew for sure that she was at the right place but she also looked more nervous at the same time. "Thanks again for doing this for me. I don't trust him not to get in trouble when he's alone by himself for so long."

"It's no trouble, Kurosaki-kun! I think we'll both have fun while I'm watching him." She reassured him as Naruto and Yuzu looked on, confused.

Naruto thought, drowsily trying to connect the dots in their conversation. This Orihime girl was watching some troublesome guy that Ichigo didn't trust? _So Ichigo is dropping his dad off to stay with Orihime? Well, I guess it would be dangerous to leave him alone too long without some type of cage or law enforcement officer close by. _Naruto, satisfied with himself for deducing the answer in such a short amount of time, laid back down to return to his nap. Ichigo and the Orihime girl kept talking, but he ignored them, especially since Ichigo was telling her boring stuff like taking care of Isshin. Something about making sure to keep all of her food out of reach and making sure to lock the door so he didn't get out. Naruto felt a little pity for the guy but he quickly forgot him as he drifted back off into unconsciousness.

…And he woke up to feel something being fastened around his neck, uncomfortably tight and choking him.

_Gah!_ He shook his head an attempt to get it off but it was too late. Whatever it was had already been secured around his neck and all his efforts did was make the thing jingle annoyingly. Naruto opened his eyes to find Ichigo smirking down at him and the slightly startled face of the girl from before.

"I thought he would react like that." Ichigo said, chuckling a little at the glare Naruto was currently giving him. "I've been planning to get him a collar for a while. You watching him just made me get it sooner then I thought I would."

_What? A collar! You put a collar on me!_ Naruto growled as he twisted around trying to get a look at the collar around his neck. When all his efforts proved futile, he turned around and glared even harder at Ichigo.

"Hey, blame yourself. I wouldn't have to do this if you didn't give me so much trouble all the time and I don't want you making it hard for Orihime." Ichigo said, trying to sound sincere but failing horribly.

"Hello Ramen!" Orihime suddenly spoke up. "My name is Orihime Inoue! I hope that we can become very good friends together!"

_Okay? _Naruto thought, shocked out of his glaring by her sudden overwhelming cheeriness. Orihime smiled at him happily.

"Be good for Orihime," Ichigo said seriously to Naruto before quickly leaning towards him and adding quickly. "And don't eat any of the food she makes."

Naruto didn't even have a chance to think about what that meant before Ichigo turned to face Orihime and said, "You should probably be getting home soon. Tatsuki will be worried and knowing her, she will probably come here and blame me."

"You're right! I'm sorry to leave you so suddenly, Kurosaki-kun." She apologized as sge started to gather all of Naruto's and her things.

"It's okay. Oh, and one last thing before you leave…" Ichigo suddenly pounced on Naruto who tried to struggle against the teen but a moment later Ichigo let go of the fox and handed Orihime the end of the leash that was clipped to a sulking Naruto's collar. "Here you go."

_I'll get you for this. Just wait…_ Naruto threatened in his mind as Orihime took the leash and stood up.

"Come along, Ramen! My friend, Tatsuki is waiting for us back at my apartment and I think you will like her!" She told him as she tugged on his leash. Naruto considered for a moment just yanking the leash out of her grip and running out the open door and away but he made the mistake of looking up at Orihime's cheerful face as she held the door open for him, completely oblivious to his thoughts. He winced and grudgingly followed after her, purposefully avoiding looking at Ichigo as she said good-bye to him. Only once his ears caught the sound of the door closing did he look back.

The house/clinic's windows shined with light against the solemn night sky. In the back of his mind, Naruto remembered seeing another sky like this, one with much more stars and framed by branches and treetops. It was his home, he realized. The place where he had grown up and lived before something had occurred to leave him unconscious in a dirty back alley with no memory.

_Well, not exactly no memory…_ Naruto thought absentmindedly. There was a bright spot in this whole situation. His memory was returning, slowly but surely in small bits and pieces. _And eventually, if I just keep collecting all those pieces, then maybe I'll be able to go home. Wherever that is._

Then he turned to leave the only thing that came close to a home as he walked off into an uncertain world.

…

The door flew open suddenly, bathing him in light as turned around incredulously to see a very odd sight.

"Noooo! Don't leave, weird fox son! I don't want to go back to just having stupid Ichigo for a son!" Isshin sobbed, trying to run over to Naruto but Ichigo and Yuzu were holding him back.

_On second thought, let's walk faster._ Naruto pulled at the leash. Orihime ended up having to walk quickly behind him until he finally slowed down when they turned out of eyesight of the house and Isshin's yells could no longer be heard. They continued walking, Orihime quiet and Naruto willingly walking along side her as the awkward silence pressed down on them. _Well, that completely killed the mood…_

* * *

><p><strong>So what do you think? I'm kind of hesitant on if Naruto was in character when he was thinking of what Ichigo smiling at him meant but I just ended up keeping it the same. <strong>

**Now for a message to **hawkSage**, who reviewed the last chapter. I prefer to reply to reviews in PMs only but since I can't for you and they raise a valid point I shall address it here! This is located in the Bleach timeline almost directly after they find Kon and before Grand Fisher. When I was planning this I actually looked up the Bleach timeline and then I just added in notes everywhere IF deviates from the original plotline. That way I can remember what I need to keep and what I want to change. (On a sidenote, I have big plans for Rukia's rescue! I'm going to try and change some things.)**

**With that said, I shall now get some sleep after spending the entire week with my family. We know how to party. Oh yeah, one more thing. The answers to the quiz were…**

**Number 1: It is a trick question because I was actually asking about the name Maeda instead of the actual character. Maeda is one of the famous samurai families from the Warring States period of Japan. That, and one samurai in particular, Maeda Keiji, is featured in a lot of animes and games. To be honest, I only chose Maeda because in one anime called Basara, Keiji has a monkey and is therefore my favorite. Look up pictures of him in Basara. He's awesome!**

**Do I really need to answer 2? Everyone got it. =_=; Night.**


	8. Chapter 8: Emotions

…**Hello? Gah! I'm so sorry! I haven't updated in three weeks then I come and give you this pitiful half-chapter which was supposed to be include another part but I think it 's more dramatic to leave it here. So yeah….**

**This thing spiraled completely out of my control but I expect these things so I actually plan in a way where I can be lenient with my brain taking IF on wild trips. Wow… Just looking at it though, I can't believe how big of a trip my brain took. What exactly has my shoulder devil been drinking? Now this ended up revealing more then I meant to this early on but it raises so much more questions too! Mwahaha! **

**Er, warning? I won't use honorifics in this story unless I think it's really needed. Orihime is an exception cuz I have no idea how to translate Kurosaki-kun to something with the same feel as it.**

**I don't own anything. STOP REMINDING ME! T-T**

**Chapter 8: Emotions**

"Hey, Orihime! I was starting to wonder if you ditched me for Ichigo! Did you get his cat?" A rough looking, wild haired girl greeted Orihime when they arrived at her apartment.

"It's not a cat. Ramen is a fox." Orihime corrected her but kept smiling happily as she removed her shoes and unclipped the leash from Naruto's collar and he glared at the girl that he assumed was the Tatsuki that Orihime had been telling him about on the way there.

Tatsuki snorted, "Sure, sure, but I'm still mad that Ichigo just dumped his pet on you." She frowned and crossed her arms as she added, "But I guess there really is no other way considering what day it is…"

"What do you mean?" Orihime asked and sat down on the bed next to Tatsuki. Curious, Naruto also crept over and jumped up onto the bed next to Orihime.

Tatsuki sighed. "Tomorrow is an… important day for the Kurosaki's. I guess the only reason I even know about it is because I met Ichigo when he was really young." She suddenly smirked. "And he was sooo weak! I was the first one in our dojo to make him cry, one good hit and he was out and crying like a baby in less then ten seconds!"

_Ichigo was a weak crybaby? _Naruto grinned. _Tell me more. _

Her smirk turned sad as she continued, looking down at her hands solemnly. "But as soon as the parents showed up to get their kids, he would stop crying. He had this unbelievably beautiful mom with the same bright orange hair at him and she would be there smiling and waiting for him and all of a sudden he would wipe away his tears with this big, idiotic smile on his face and run over to meet her."

"To be honest, it made me a little angry that he could just throw away his tears like that. He would forget anything in a second if he had his mom there with him. She was such a nice person and was always smiling at everyone. Ichigo depended on her to be a constant in his life, his whole family was like that."

Naruto frowned. Things were tugging at the edge of his mind. The poster of Ichigo's mother, how Yuzu cooked all their meals and did most of the chores, and most importantly was the fact that he hadn't seen Ichigo's mother anywhere. The pieces were starting to fall into place and he felt his eyes widen in horror as Tatsuki said quietly,

"But then she died."

Naruto stiffened and flashes of red and yellow seared his mind. For a brief second, it felt like he was drowning in sorrow with a tinge of bittersweet optimism.

_Those eyes… They were looking at him with those eyes again! Hate, fear… They don't care about me and I don't care about them! They can mock me all they want and threaten me but it doesn't matter… as long as they know I'm here._

Overwhelming joy mixed with a feeling of betrayal and a deep, boiling anger.

_Why did you seal him in your own son? Do you know how tough it's been living with that? …I'm happy, I'm pissed as Hell, I don't know what to feel!_

A wave of emotion filled his mind drowning out his thoughts. Rage, confusion, happiness, and most importantly, fear. His mind was overflowing with all of it and he had no idea what to do with it all. His thoughts turned frantic and his breath started to come quickly

_How could they just lock him away right when he finally came back to his senses? Why did he just agree to it! Don't leave me just like that! I don't care what you say! He's my friend!_

"What's happening to him? Shit! He's hyperventilating! Call Ichigo! Something's wrong with the fox!"

_Don't I get a choice in any of this? What's happening to me? What are you doing to me? No! I don't want to forget! I didn't do anything wrong! Stop this! _Blackness started to creep into the corners of his vision and even as he struggled the _hopelessness_ was telling him that there was no point.

No point at all.

_Don't…_ Eventually, his struggles lessened as his limbs started to weigh on him more and more and he could feel the apathetic Blankness as it was systematically washing away his mind, annihilating his memories one at a time. As he teetered between the Blackness, the Blankness, and the loss of everything he knew, he dimly registered a feather soft touch cradling him, gently stroking his hair as it hummed a sad tune, which made his battle to stay awake even harder. A blurred and unfocused face looked down at him and he pushed aside the _hopelessness_ for a second to try once more just so that he could see the face of this person- this person that seemed to be the last one in the world- and as he finally managed to force his eyelids open, his savior leaned down and closed them, forcing him back into the Blackness, whispering in his ear as they did so,

"_**I'll protect you forever… I promise."**_


	9. Chapter 9: Alone

**Caution: Never touch Urahara's drugs. They have a lot of kick to them.**

**Chapter 9: Alone**

The first thing Naruto saw when he opened his eyes was Urahara's face less then an inch from his.

"Why, hello there, Mr. Kitsune! How nice of you to join us in the living once more! Well, I'm not really 'alive' but-" Naruto slammed his head into the ugly bucket hat covered head. "Hey! What was that for?"

Ignoring him, Naruto looked around his surroundings frantically and spotted an escape route. Bracing himself, he ran at the thin screen door, ready to jump through it and towards safety. However, the crazy man named Urahara recovered quickly and shouted, "Get him!"

_Thump! Thump!_

Out of nowhere, the little girl and that red haired kid that Naruto had bitten last time slammed into his sides. The unexpected weight stunned him for a moment and caused him to stumble but he steadied himself and smirked at them. _Ha! You think that will stop me? You're too puny to stop this fox!_

The little punk flipped him the bird just as Naruto became aware of a very large object approaching him at high speeds from above.

_THUD!_

Naruto made a sound like a strangled bird and the air was knocked out of him as the gigantic mustachioed man slammed down onto his back, most likely crushing a few bones and organs in the process.

"I didn't want to do this," Urahara said remorsefully, as if he had been the one just crushed by a giant instead of ordering the giant and the two midgets to do it to Naruto. "But you left me no choice. Ichigo trusted me to take care of you and I can't disappoint him."

He stared dramatically off into the distance for a moment as Naruto started to see black spots in his vision due to his airway having been cut off.

Urahara snapped his fan open, with a smile on his face that the devil would be jealous of. "Well, nothing to do about it. Tessai!"

The giant nodded and Naruto craned his head upward just in time to see the enormous needle heading towards his face. Panicking, he started to squirm and wiggle but it was to no avail as he felt a sharp pinch in the back of his neck and everything just seemed to darken around him. The last thing he saw before he passed out was Urahara's face grinning gleefully.

"What secrets are you hiding, Mr. Kitsune?"

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><p>He awoke again later, to the yells of Ichigo. For some reason that he couldn't remember, his head was lightheaded and when he opened his eyes the room was swimming around him. A swirly looking Ichigo was gesturing to him wildly and he could just make out the words he was yelling at the crazy guy, and what was his name again? Oh yeah, he said it was Urahara last time, didn't he?<p>

"What did you do to him?" Ichigo yelled at Urahara, looking between the shopkeeper and Naruto who was currently smiling dopily around the room.

_Hey, Ichigoooo. Shhhhh, you're too loud… _Naruto murmured, sleepily rubbing his head against Ichigo's leg. Ichigo pushed him away looking slightly disturbed. "What did you give him? He looks… strange."

Urahara pouted at him behind his fan. "Nothing much. Just some anesthetic and few other things I had lying around the shop. Stop being such a spoilsport." He waved his hand dismissively at a table cluttered with empty medicine bottle and needles.

"You gave him all of those? That could have killed him!"

"Of course I didn't give him all of those. I'm smarter then to accidently kill Mr. Kitsune." Urahara said, looking mildly offended.

Ichigo relaxed a little as he pushed Naruto's head away from rubbing his leg again before Urahara happily added,

"I mixed them."

Ichigo stormed into his bedroom where Rukia was reading a book on his bed and plopped a dazed looking Naruto in front of her. "We are NEVER letting that guy watch Ramen again."

"What? Why?" Rukia asked, quickly dropping her book and glomping Naruto.

"Just look at him! Urahara drugged my fox!" Ichigo shouted, pointing at Naruto who had literally rolled out of Rukia's grasp and was currently wandering around across the bed, making weird giggling sounds. As they watched, he fell off the bed and lay there for a moment rolling around on the ground before giggling again and walking over to Ichigo so he could rub his head on his leg again.

"…I don't see anything wrong with him."

"Are you kidding me? I leave for one day and I come back to discover that you gave Ramen to Urahara without asking my permission and he injected my fox with who knows how many drugs that were lying around his house! Why does he even have those in his house?"

Rukia shrugged, "He likes to experiment?"

Ichigo looked at her incredulously. He picked Naruto up, who looked positively delighted and cuddled into him, licking his face. Ichigo looked very disturbed now and leaned as far away from the drugged fox. "I'm going to go ask the old man if there is a way to drain this stuff out of his system faster. If there isn't then we may need to make another trip to vet's. How I'll explain it, I don't have a clue." He muttered and carried the fox out of the room, leaving Rukia who had returned to her book with a disinterested expression.

Once she was sure that Ichigo was downstairs and the sounds of fighting between him and his father had started, she glanced around the room quickly and threw her book over her shoulder. Digging under the pillow, she pulled out her prize, a small battered cell phone. She dialed a number and after a few rings the other line was picked up and a casual voice answered teasingly, "Hello, mysterious caller?"

Rukia replied quickly and sharply, "Why did you give him all of that? I asked you to examine him, not get him high."

"Why so cold, Rukia? I did what you asked but I couldn't have the fox awake and panicking while I did it." Rukia sighed, she could practically hear the pout Urahara had over the phone. She looked out the window. The sun was setting, casting the city in a blood-red glow.

"Get to the point. What did you find?"

Urahara's voice came back completely serious. "It's as you expected. There's definitely something different about that fox."

Rukia nodded to herself and tried to make herself relax back into the bed; She was going to be here for a while.

* * *

><p>Ichigo grimaced as he toweled off a wet Naruto. His father had been able to find some type of medicine that had made the fox throw up everything in its stomach including a suspicious purple liquid that really made Ichigo wonder where Urahara got his "anesthestic". Unfortunately the fox ended up getting his puke on himself so now Ichigo had to wash the fox off. It was a pain to give the fox a bath but at least Naruto was still slightly out of it and was much easier to hold him down then the first time Ichigo had tried to wash him. That had been a disaster.<p>

_Ugh, what did I eat? _Naruto groaned, mind still cloudy along with a nasty taste in his mouth and a painful headache. The last thing he could remember clearly was being squashed by that giant then a really big needle. What happened after that was a giant fog along with a faint memory of a craving for noodles-which wasn't that surprising considering the fact that Naruto was always craving noodles in some form.

Ichigo turned off the and lifted his hand, releasing Naruto who instantly jumped out of the tub and shook himself, splattering water all over the bathroom and Ichigo himself. The orange haired teen sighed and pulled out another blanket from the cabinet to dry off his clothes and hair from his unwanted shower as Naruto was currently rolling around in the other towel. Ichigo finished drying himself first and threw his towel in what looked like a laundry basket before heading to his room. Naruto paused for a moment and carefully dropped the towel in the basket and followed after Ichigo.

On his way there, he passed by Rukia who was pocketing her cell phone. She looked tired and worried but the look turned slightly suspicious when she spotted Naruto and she stopped for a second and kneeled in front of him, grabbing his chin and staring at him questioningly.

"What are you doing here…?" She murmured. She looked like she was going to ask something else but just then Ichigo looked around the corner.

"Something wrong? Why are you looking at him like he just dropped out of the sky?"

Rukia shook her head, letting go of the very confused fox as she stood up. "Nothing. Don't worry about it." She told him briskly and turned to walk away.

"Hey! Wait a second, where are you going?"

"I have to ask Urahara something."

"Oh… Then give him a good kick for me, okay?"

Rukia just waved once to them without looking back and continued on her way, leaving Ichigo and Naruto standing in the middle of the hallway. There was an awkward moment where they just looked at each other with a message of 'what the heck do we do now?' passing between them before Ichigo shrugged and started to walk back to his room. Naruto started to follow him when he suddenly stopped, sniffing the air.

"Huh? What are you doin- Hey, come back here!" Ichigo yelled at him when he ran down the hallway all of a sudden. He ran after him in time to see Naruto scratching at Yuzu's door. "What's wrong? Is there some food in there or something?" He said, confused, and opened the door for the fox who slipped through. Curious, he looked in and froze.

"Yuzu? What's wrong?" Ichigo asked, surprisingly gently as he sat down next to the crying girl. Naruto climbed up to the bed on the other side of her and licked her face.

He gagged from the salt water.

"Why are you crying?" Ichigo asked softly.

"Because Mom's gone," Yuzu said, hugging Naruto while she tried to wipe her tears away. "I know that I'm being silly because she's been dead so long but I still start crying when I think about her too much and I feel like such a crybaby but I can't stop-"

"Yuzu, you aren't a crybaby." Ichigo told her, stopping her rambling, "You're one of the strongest people I know. If we didn't have you then Goatface, Karin, and me would probably have starved a long time ago from eating nothing but instant ramen."

She giggled at both Ichigo and how Naruto instantly perked up and started waving his tail when he heard ramen. "And the house would probably be so messy that all our neighbors would be able to smell it from down the street. We would have to dig ourselves tunnels through all of the junk just so we could get to our rooms." He joked and grinned when Yuzu gasped in mock horror and played along with him.

"The dishes would pile up in the sink and Ramen would starve because no one would feed him!"

"Hey, I feed him without your help!"

"But he never eats the dog food you give him!"

"Maybe if you and the old man stopped feeding him your food he would. He's going to get fat because of you two! We'll have to roll him around everywhere because he'll just be a big fat ball of orange fur!"

_Don't listen to him, Yuzu! _Naruto yelped. _I'll be fine! Please keep feeding me! The dog food is gross!_

Yuzu couldn't keep a straight face at the absolutely horrified look on his face and fell over giggling uncontrollably. Ichigo smirked at Naruto who couldn't decide if he should be laughing too or begging Yuzu for food.

Yuzu giggled one last time before standing up and smiling happily at Ichigo. "I have to go make dinner. Thank you for cheering me up!"

"No problem. Just make something good and we'll be even." Yuzu laughed and they both walked out of her room. Naruto was about to follow Yuzu to try and get some food but he decided to stick around Ichigo because something seemed a little bit strange and dark about him even as he joked with Yuzu.

These suspicions proved correct when Ichigo's face suddenly lost its smile as Yuzu turned the corner and he had pained expression on his face. He muttered so softly to himself that Naruto would have had trouble hearing it if he had been anyone other then himself, "I'm sorry, Yuzu. I'm so sorry…"

_Ichigo?_ Naruto bumped his head against Ichigo's side causing him to look down at him slightly surprised but the emotions quickly disappeared from his face and he smiled at him sadly. Naruto's eyes narrowed. _That's the same smile as last time! The 'Everything is okay' smile! You can't trick me with that! _Naruto didn't know what it was about that smile but even he could tell that there was a hint of hysteria in his voice along with pure desperation to make Ichigo stop hiding his emotions behind that smile.

_You have to tell someone that's something is wrong or else nothing will fix it._ _Trust me, Ichigo! I know these things! I don't know why but I do know what's happening to you. But hiding it won't work! It will just keep getting worse and worse!_

Naruto wanted to scream with frustration when Ichigo just kept looking at him with that lying smile on his face and he barked at his back angrily as Ichigo turned to walk away. He knew that there was no way for Ichigo to understand him but something felt so familiar and backwards about this situation.

Naruto had been the one wearing that mask. He made promises and smiled, a shining light to the people around him.

But lights always go out and the brightest of them leaves the most darkness when it's gone.

He poured all of his emotions into the words he was trying to say and something seemed to click inside his mind but for reasons he couldn't understand, he had the strangest feeling of regret as he growled at Ichigo.

_You have to share the burden with other people. You can't just push everyone away and take on the entire burden. You'll start to break from the strain of it all. And in the end, you'll just be… "_Alone…"

**Hello! Sorry for the long break but I actually have had a lot of personal problems and situations going on in my life right now but I managed to find the inspiration to get this chapter out. And it's a little longer then usual so yay for you! **

**Now for the fun stuff! **

**READ THIS! You know those little demonic, bloodsucking things in your minds called plot bunnies? And you know how they pick and pick at your mind and steal inspiration from other stuff? Well I'm asking you to unleash some on me! This story currently has 80 reviews! When we reach 100 then I'm going to put up an extra little thing for you and I want you guys to choose what it is going to be about!**

**The Requirements: Has to be an around a thousand words or less idea(aka a oneshot idea, no multichaptered stories) Has to be centered in Ironic Fate. And I'm not writing any pairings. Right now I have two possible ideas, one being the before mentioned bath scene of doom and the other one is a SURPRISE. Have fun!**

**Oh yeah, one last thing. There's this amazing manga called Tripeace and it needs more love. Go and check it out! It's perfect for any of you people like me who have a weird love for cross dressing bishounens! It is AWESOME. **

**Stopping all wars with peace, love, and chaos~ This is Masked Bard of Chaos signing off until next time.**


	10. Chapter 10: Mr Kitsune

**Disclaimer hath been disclaimed! (Yes, I realize that makes no sense. Therefore, it makes sense. Logic, people!)**

**Chapter 10: Mr. Kitsune**

"Alone…"

Ichigo spun around to face Naruto. "Did you hear that?" He asked looking around them worriedly. He had heard a growling voice speak behind him and he couldn't help but be reminded of the different hollows he had faced who had talked with him. The voice that had just spoken was like those, deep and gravelly but with a different pitch to them somehow buried underneath the deeper tones.

Next to him, Naruto was wide-eyed and his mind was racing. He was growling at Ichigo and really angry and somehow- he had absolutely no idea how- the growling changed! It was animalistic one second and then it just changed into something understandable.

Something human.

Ichigo had given up on finding the source of the voice. If it was a hollow near his house then he would just have to be on watch until it appeared but he couldn't find anything hiding around the room. For a brief second he considered the voice coming from Ramen since he had been standing near the origin of the voice and he had been growling at him for some reason right before the hollow had spoken but he quickly disregarded that chance. Naruto was just a fox, how could he possibly talk?

* * *

><p>For some reason, Rukia had a sudden urge to whack Ichigo really hard on the head as she talked to Urahara.<p>

She whacked Urahara instead.

* * *

><p>Ichigo had gone downstairs for dinner but Naruto had stayed pacing around in Ichigo's room instead of his usual place under the table trying to get food. Even the tempting thought of actual food instead of that gross dog food Ichigo was always trying to feed him wasn't distracting Naruto from his panic.<p>

He had spoken! Not just rambling on in his mind but actually communicating. He wasn't sure if he should be happy about that or scared because this proved that he definitely wasn't a normal fox. Sure, he had some suspicions before because of his amnesia and weird memories but he didn't really have any way to test them.

Hesitantly, Naruto tried to talk again, "'Rello? Ello? Hello!" He repeated it excitedly as he tested out his weird new ability. It still sounded quite guttural and gravely but it could actually be understood and as he talked more he could feel it start to become more comfortable to say and the words started to become clearer.

"Ramen! Noodles! Beef, miso, chicken, shrimp, tempura, ramen!" He happily sang all of the ingredients when he came to one that made him stop his dancing around the room and suddenly become serious. Slowly and carefully, he spoke, trying to not mess up the words.

"Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto. I am Uzumaki Naruto!" He repeated it again but he wasn't very happy with was too empty. Something was missing, but what was it? No matter how many times he repeated it, he still couldn't remember that one thing. Finally, he decided that he may remember it later and went downstairs to get a little bit of food in before Yuzu cleaned everything up.

For the next week, Naruto practiced talking while he was alone in the house. There were many times that his mouth just couldn't form a certain word and he discovered that when he became very angry or excited he couldn't speak a word without it becoming growls and barks. His voice was becoming clearer and less gravely but it was still quite growl like and somehow he could tell that it was too deep to be _his _voice.

He would practice by reading the ingredients of different foods from the kitchen and he once tried reading one of Isshin's medical books before giving up because his brain felt like it would explode but he was bored! Ichigo didn't make the mistake of leaving the door open again but after much poking around and a few broken dishes, (which conveniently disappeared into the neighbor's lawn afterwards) Naruto was able to find a window in the kitchen that had a broken latch on it that he could easily open.

He only explored close to the house the first day but he was more eager to explore on the second day. He had questions and as much as it pained him he knew just the place to get those answers.

"Mr. Kitsune! You've come back!" Urahara said happily when he spotted Naruto walking down the street after a long trip of trying to track the smell through a city. Naruto just stared at him tiredly and walked into the shop, plopping down on a cushion.

"Would you like some tea, Mr. Kitsune?" Naruto glared at him as he remembered the aftermath of last time Urahara had taken care of him but inwardly he was relieved. He really didn't have much to go off coming here that would suggest that Urahara knew what he was or even that he wasn't a normal fox. All he did know was that Urahara always spoke to him as if he was a human with respect (but he certainly didn't treat him with respect) and that he acted like he wanted to learn about Naruto. Plus, Rukia always talked about him like he was someone knowledgeable and as supernatural as Ichigo and Rukia were then Urahara must know something about Naruto's situation. Maybe he could even help him recover his memory!

So with this in mind Naruto tried to calm himself and asked in his steadiest and most normal voice, "What do you know about me?"

Urahara smiled deviously, not surprised in the least, "So Mr. Kitsune finally talks!" He paused, tapping his chin contemplatively and stared at Naruto, leaning in uncomfortably close to his face. "But from the sounds of it, you haven't been talking for a very long time."

"How do you know that?" Naruto asked, excited that Urahara apparently did know about what he was. A little too excited apparently because his voice broke near the middle and turned into a barking sound. Gritting his teeth with frustration, he repeated the question. "How do you know that? How can you tell that I just started talking?"

"Honestly, the information isn't that hard to find. Any good researcher worth his rank could tell what you were at first sight and that you had just begun talking based off how deep and animalistic it still is." Urahara told him, and sipped from his cup of tea. "It's easy enough to find when you're studying the ancestors of Hollows. I believe they even do a brief section on your kind at the Academy."

Naruto stared at him, completely lost. "Hollows? An Academy? My kind?"

Urahara looked at him in a mix between curious and confused. "Don't you know what the hollows are? Has your species been that isolated for the past thousands of years?" He looked at him intensely from the shadows beneath his hat and asked very slowly as if talking to a dangerous and cornered animal, "Don't you know what _you_ are?"

Naruto's breath caught in his throat. The truth was that he honestly didn't and that fact terrified him. If he answered this then there would be no hope of ever being able to fade back into a normal lifestyle like the one he had been enjoying for the past few weeks.

(And even that was just barely holding onto the illusion of normal with the most vague of definitions.)

He had always known that there was no way in hell that he could possibly be an average fox. The flashes of bizarre memory and his own strange ability to do things that he was almost positive no other fox could do were just icing on the cake when compared to the odd sense of wrongness he got from just living and breathing in his own body. Sometimes, he would forget where he was and just relax and during those few moments it would be like he was suddenly looking through a stranger's eyes at the world around him. He would try to stand and fall. The sight of his own orange fur and tail would terrify him. Half-formed words would try to escape his throat and fail horribly, resembling neither growls or speech.

Then he would suddenly wake up and calm down. No, calm down wasn't the right word for it. He wasn't even sure if there was a word to describe the feeling of being suddenly shoved away from that state of mind and having a rock solid wall smash down on it, preventing all attempts to reach it again. These moments had only happened a few times when he was alone and peaceful but each time it happened it the aftermath of it would leave him confused and angry for a reason that was just out of his understanding. He couldn't understand many things about his situation but one thing he did know was that he _desperately_ wanted to recover those memories, to claw through that rock wall and look at things the way he did in those brief moments.

Pushing past memories of Yuzu slipping him food and Ichigo smirking at him in the closest way the teen would get to smiling (_Home, _his mind whispered, yet at the same time warring with an image of a dark tree-covered sky filled with an impossible number of stars.) Naruto stared Urahara dead in the eye and spoke.

"No. I have no memory of who or what I am. No memories, no idea where I was, just a name in the back of my head. And I came here to ask you something," Naruto paused, deadly serious and calm looking but there was an unmistakable hint of panic and desperation in his voice when he spoke next.

"What am I?"

**Aaaand cut! Now let's talk about tomatoes! I love tomatoes! They're so red and juicy and- Hey? What's with the pitchforks? Fine, fine. Back to the story. *whispers* Partypoopers...**

Urahara was quiet for a minute, sipping at his tea. Naruto waited and waited as minutes passed and finally he couldn't handle it and growled at Urahara, extremely annoyed, "Well?"

Urahara grinned at him fake innocently, "Welllll," Urahara drew it out childishly making Naruto grind his teeth and start mentally listing reasons why maiming the shop owner was NOT a good idea. (Which sadly for Naruto and possibly Ichigo was a very long list.) "That was a very emotionally charged moment you were having but the question you asked has been answered from the very first time I met you."

"What the hell do you mean by that!" Naruto barked, barely managing to not burst in angry growls as he searched his memory and came up with nothing like what Urahara was suggesting and instead just seeing the many reasons why he avoided him whenever he could.

"I've been calling you it from the moment I sensed your reiatsu outside." Urahara smiled tauntingly at Naruto. "Shouldn't you have realized it by now?"

"Mr. Kitsune?"

* * *

><p><strong>Soooo, who gets it? Come and brag in the review room if you think you have. But be warned that you might just have been trolled epicly. <strong>

**Oh, and before I forget to mention it in the future, I've decided that the song that really just seems to symbolize this story perfectly is No light, No light by Florence + the Machine. (Love that band!) Does anyone else have any songs they think really works for this story or for the Naruto/ Bleach series perfectly?**


	11. Chapter 11: The Hidden Blood

**Ah, Disclaimer, my old enemy... _  
><em>**

_"I've been calling you it from the moment I sensed your reiatsu outside my store." Urahara smiled tauntingly at Naruto. "Shouldn't you have realized it by now?"_

_"Mr. Kitsune?"_

**Chapter 11: The Hidden Blood **_  
><em>

The room was completely silent as the two stared at each other, one trying to untangle the puzzles of his existence and the other waiting for the fox sitting across from him to finally figure it out. The silence was heavy and tense till finally something seemed to change in Naruto's expression and Urahara smiled expectantly as he put his tea cup down with a clink that seemed to break the silence.

Tensely, Naruto opened his mouth to speak but hesitated with some type of raw feeling in his eyes that Urahara couldn't place. It took but a moment for the fox to overcome it but when he did his voice was steady and calm, confident in what he was saying.

"I..."

An unseen clock ticked ominously...

"I-"

Readers hold their breath excitedly in anticipation as somewhere in the world a kangaroo sneezes...

"I... Have no idea what you're trying to tell me."

"..."

Urahara picked himself off the ground from which he face planted onto and sighed with an annoyed look on his face. "Honestly, kids these days, no appreciation for tense climaxes..." He muttered under his breath before clearing his voice and looking at Naruto, his usual smile back on his face, albeit a little more forced. "You, my dear idiotic fox, are a kitsune."

Naruto stared at him dryly, an unspoken message of 'No shit, Sherlock' in it.

Urahara just smiled mockingly back, inwardly wondering why he always got the stupid ones.

"Do you know of the myths surrounding kitsune? How they would gain multiple tails and were demons or god sent spirits?"

_Oh..._Naruto nodded dumbfoundedly, as it started to dawn on him.

"These actually are not just myths. There once were many kitsune that roamed the lands. They could control the elements and would grow a new tail every time their power increased. However, these kitsune weren't messengers for the gods like some myths suggest. They were fox demons- they would hunt down and eat souls to boost their powers. In fact, kitsune were the original enemy of the Shinigami and the ancestors of Hollows. They were around from before even huma- Yes?" Urahara asked dryly to the comical sight of Naruto raising one paw with a confused look on his face.

"Yeah, about that... What are Shinigami?"

Urahara's smile dropped for a moment and he stared incredulously at Naruto.

"And while we're at it, what the hell are Hollows? And what's this whole 'soul' business?" Naruto asked, making air quotes around 'soul'- or at least twitching his paws in an imitation of it.

Urahara flipped open his fan and flapped it in front of his face a few times to cover the annoyed look on his face. _This is going to be awhile..._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Three hours, fifty-two minutes and four seconds of wasted time<strong>_** later...**

_"_So you and Ichigo are both dead?"

Urahara sighed openly as he explained the point for the third time to Naruto. "I am dead. Rukia is dead. Hollows are dead. Tessai is dead. The Spirit King is dead. THE ENTIRE GOTEI THIRTEEN IS DEAD. Ichigo. Is. Not. Dead!" Urahara growled out, finishing with the loud sound of his fan snapping shut.

"Ah... Who's Tessai?"

Urahara groaned. _I am NOT getting paid enough for this. I don't care how popular a character he is, Kubo better up my pay for having to deal with this imbecile._ He took a deep breath to recover from his brief moment of demolishing the fourth wall and returned to his snarky and beloved in character self. Opening his eyes again, he looked seriously at the fox in front of him. "Do you understand now?"

"I think so." He replied, resting his head on his paws."Though I still don't really get how stabbing himself with Rukia's sword would give Ichigo supernatural death god powers... And how can he be alive even though he's a DEATH god? Doesn't that make him some type of living ghost? That means that I've been living with a half dead ghost person!" Naruto shivered.

"Close enough." Urahara said, _Better not tell him that he was also living with two completely dead ghosts and that he's currently talking to one._ "But to finally get back to what I was saying before, kitsune are the ancestors and the indirect creators of Hollows. Hundreds of years ago, kitsune would roam the land. Seeking to gain power, they would attack humans and eat them whole, both soul and body. There isn't much information on how the first Shinigami were created but the popular belief is that a small percentage of human souls in hiding from the kitsune managed to reach into themselves and call out their zanpakuto. While on the run from a bloodthirsty and savage kitsune, they trained themselves until finally the day came where they stood against their pursuer and fought. For three whole days, they battled endlessly until they managed to wear down the kitsune and slay it. This was the first time a human soul managed to kill a kitsune with a zanpakuto."

He paused, looking at Naruto seriously. "However, this was also the birth of Hollows. You see, the purpose of a zanpakuto is to release a soul back into the cycle. The only problem with this is that a kitsune's reiatsu is naturally very corrupted. It's like acid compared to normal reiatsu. Normally, when a kitsune dies naturally the souls it's soul will lose its acidity and the human souls in it will do likewise if they are not eaten by other kitsune before the souls escape back into the reincarnation cycle. But this doesn't work when the kitsune is killed with a zanpakuto. A zanpakuto dissolves away and cleanses the enemy's corrupted reiatsu but it isn't able to take away all of the acidity of a kitsune's reiatsu because of their unique bond to an actual physical body which can produce and harbor such vile reiatsu. Therefore, when the souls returned to the cycle, they were warped unlike any other souls from the acid and came back as a watered down version of the kitsune."

Urahara looked at Naruto to see how his audience was responding to this information and sighed when he saw that the fox was currently staring just to the right of his head with a glazed and confused look on his face. The shop owner glared at him for just just wasting an excellently delivered lesson like that and snapped his fan shut loudly right in front of the fox's nose to wake him up.

"Wha-?" Naruto blinked sleepily.

"Your ancestors made the Hollows because someone did a bad job of killing them."

"Oh..." Naruto blinked some more. "Wait, isn't that bad?"

Urahara flapped his fan irritatedly. "Took you long enough."

"But if kitsune like me are even bigger baddies then Hollows then why haven't I heard about them at all or seen them hunting down people? How does everyone manage to live so freely if there are these giant demons who want to eat them?"

Urahara stared at him in the eye and the sharp, serious look in his eyes woke Naruto up immediately. It also made him realize something. Urahara may smile act like an irresponsible child almost all of the time but he was powerful. Naruto could sense it in the air around him and as one thief would know another upon seeing them, Naruto knew that Urahara was a master of wearing a mask. He hid both his intentions and his powers well until the moment came when he needed something to be done and only then would he go all out. The look in his eyes right then proved it.

They were old eyes. Determined to fight the battle till its completion- even if he was on the losing side. The man in front of Naruto was willing to trick and deceive if it meant that what he was fighting for would come about. Whatever he was about to tell him, Naruto was certain that it would mean bad news for him.

"That's because there are no more kitsune." Urahara told him solemnly. "More then a thousand years ago, the shinigami gathered together thousands of kitsune and slaugthered them all, leaving none alive. They then proceeded to hunt down the rest. Of course, some were able to escape the initial hunt but it's been a thousand years since then. Kitsune may have a long lifespan but even they aren't able to live as long as the myths say they can. The last sighting of a kitsune was seven hundred years ago on a deserted island in the Mediterranean Sea. Reports said that it was gray haired and elderly. It was killed on sight."

Naruto's blood which had steadily been growing colder as Urahara spoke, felt like ice in his veins. When Urahara had first told him that kitsune were evil creatures who had killed people for their souls, he had been able to detach himself more from the situation. After all, the way Urahara was speaking seemed to imply that those ones were long gone. And again, when he had told him of how the shinigami killed the kitsune that had been chasing them, he had realized that any reaction the shinigami would have to seeing him probably wouldn't be very good but he had assumed that they would give him enough time to explain that he had no interest in eating any souls- human or other- and they would at the very least let him live.

But that was before he knew about this. This massacre of an entire species. It woke him up to the harsh realization that he was likely to be hunted down the second they learned of him. If he ever did anything to draw attention to himself then he would have to watch his back for as long as he lived. If they didn't have the mercy to even let an old kitsune who had lived alone for hundreds of years live then what would they do to kill a young one like Naruto?

Urahara watched as the horror and terror grew in the kitsune's eyes. "Most people do not know the entire truth of this. The short lesson on kitsune in the academy has almost no details and to even learn what happened to the kitsune I had to search in ancient books that managed to escape the notice of the officials of Seireitei. They tried to hide the bloody past of Soul Society. To the few that even are aware of the ancestors of the hollows the kitsune just vanished out of history, never mentioned again past a certain point."

Naruto listened, wide-eyed, as Urahara explained. A question arose in his head and he eagerly latched onto it for a chance to avoid thinking of his species demise and what it meant for him. "If no one speaks of it then why do you seem to know so much about it? Why did you go through so much trouble to learn about them?"

A strange expression flitted across Urahara's face before he quickly covered it with a nonchalant grin but if Naruto could've seen it for a second longer then he would have called it sadness. "I only stumbled upon the kitsune accidently because some information I was looking for was in the same books. I did search for more information on the kitsune for awhile because I was hoping it could help with a situation I was in but it didn't lead to anything."

"Oh," Naruto said half-heartedly, still trying to focus on keeping his mind off of his ancestors. He looked around the room awkwardly and realized how much darker it seemed then when he had first come. "Shit, what time is it?"

"Hmm, must have been at least three hours since you came..."

"WHAT? That means that Ichigo and Rukia will be back from school by now! They'll know I found a way out of the house!" Naruto shouted, his voice turning bark-like at the end as he panicked and thought sadly about being cooped up in the house again all day after being able to roam free outside for such a short amount of time.

He was so immersed in his thoughts that he didn't notice Urahara sneakily creeping towards him until he suddenly felt his legs being restrained as Urahara hurriedly did something at the back of his neck. He thrashed around after he got over his surprise but it was already too late. A cheery jingling sounded along with the normal clinking of his collar that he had gotten used too, and the sound made him go rigid with horror as he realized that he could also feel something tied around his neck over the collar. _  
><em>

"You didn't.." His voice trailed off as he realized that yes, he DID.

"How do you like it?" Urahara asked happily, pulling a mirror out of nowhere and held it up so Naruto could see his reflection. As much as he wished that he was wrong, his fears were proven correct as the bell that was tied around his neck chimed annoyingly again. Urahara had tied a giant green bow the exact shade as the shopkeeper's hat around his neck, tied off in the back with a big golden bell hanging from it at Naruto's throat.

Naruto could only stare at it stupidly for a few minutes before his horror turned to anger in the form of an aura of murderous intent as he turned to glare at the shopkeeper.

Urahara chuckled nervously and raised both of his hands, "Before you kill me, might I remind you that this could work out for both of us?"

"What could this possibly do for me?" Naruto said slowly, stalking towards Urahara with his teeth bared slightly.

"If Ichigo and Rukia sees that then they'll just assume that I kidnapped you so you would be able to continue sneaking away without them knowing."

Naruto thought about it, it did sound like it would work. He would have to swallow some pride but he knew that he wouldn't be able to get it off even if he did kill Urahara. Suspiciously, he asked, "And what would you get from this?"

Urahara grinned, "Oh, nothing but the enjoyment of seeing you look so adorable, Naru-chan!" _And some blackmail material for later..._

Five minutes later, Naruto left the store in a huff, leaving behind a bleeding Urahara.

****Okay, before I get on my knees and beg for forgiveness, I just want to say something...****

****HA! Take that, ya stinking impossible chapter! I FINISHED! *dances around room*****

****Now I beg for forgiveness! I'm really sorry, guys, but I actually have been cracking at this thing since I came back but this chapter was just so impossible that I would just end up deleting everything I just wrote because I hated it all. I give Kudos to anyone who can sucessfully write an in character serious Urahara. It's really hard.****

**Everyone loves tying things around Naruto's neck. This is becoming a recurring theme...**

**I'm plotting in detail the Rukia Rescue Arc RIGHT NOW. That means, if you have any fights you want to see or character interaction then you must tell me now so I can see if I can fit it in.**

**Please review, and if you do then pleaseeee answer the above request. Please?**


	12. Chapter 12: The Hunter

**DISCLAIMING POWERS! GO! **

**Oh, and I'm going to leave you to draw your own conclusions on this chapter.**

**Chapter 12: The Hunter**

Naruto yawned lazily and rolled over onto his back, stretching his legs as far as they would go as the sun warmed his fur.

It had been about a month since he discovered what he was but really nothing had changed since then. There was some popular celebrity that had come by about a week ago. Naruto had taken one look at him and declared him a nut job and taken off to go search for Karin's secret stash of snacks.

Now he was lying on Ichigo's bed, basking in the midday sunlight. Usually he would be wandering around the house at this time but that crazy celebrity had brought in so many people that he could barely even move around without getting a paw trampled on or a tail tugged. Even now, a week after the guy left, it was still more crowded then usual. And people kept calling Animal Control on him! He was practically on first name basis with those idiots from all those times they chased after him. Though he had to admit that it could usually entertain him for a whole afternoon running from them. And it was a usual occurrence now to see the orange fox running from the officers. It happened so much that he had heard people call him Outlaw when he passed by. It was either that or, "Princess" from all of the little girls that he always ran into when they were returning from the elementary school.

Naruto growled irritated to himself and rolled back over so he could rest his head on his front paws with his tail swishing angrily behind him. _I'm bored! There's nothing to do in here that I haven't already done and Ichigo and Rukia won't be getting back for at least another hour if they're not distracted by a Hollow!_

His natural ability to attract trouble like Kon to pretty girls just didn't seem to be working today. Any other day he would have already had to lose the police three times by now, manage to take an unplanned bath in the river, and be mobbed by little children who wanted, "the cute orange puppy to give them a ride." At least he sometimes got food from them even if it did mean handfuls of fur being yanked out and having to escape before they tried to take him home with them. (What a disaster that had been. It took forever to get all of the bows out of his fur.) Instead, all he had done today was sleep, eat all of the cereal that Ichigo likes and dump that nasty dog food in the box, look for where Ichigo had hid the ramen cups from him this time, find them and eat some more ramen, and sleep some more! He didn't even have Kon to chase around because Ichigo had taken him with him to school so he didn't always need Rukia to whack him in the face to be able to hunt Hollows.

He stared at the ceiling which was a bland and calming off-white. A minute passed by slowly and it seemed like all that Naruto could see now was that blank expanse of not-white. _It's like white but it's not. And it's not gray either. Why didn't they just paint it white? Or did they paint it white and it got dust all over it? But would the dust turn it gray? Can dust even stay on ceilings? How would it do that? Maybe the dust has some weird power like Ichigo and can ignore the laws of gravity? But wouldn't the dust have to be dead then? But then the dust would have to be alive first. Maybe it's dustbunny ghosts? It would explain how the dust just seems to breed and pop up all over the place when you turn away for a second. So could dust bunny ghosts turn into Hollows? But then there would have to be dust bunny Shinigami to keep the dust bunny Hollows from eating all of the dust bunny_ _ghosts._

An image of a gray bunny Ichigo in his Shinigami appeared in his mind. The dust bunny Ichigo was fighting against a bunny frog shark Hollow and Naruto frowned when a thought occurred to him. _And w__ouldn't there have to be a_ _dust bunny kitsune to start the whole cycle? _

The image of a bunny kitsune Naruto floated in his mind and shocked him out of his off-white caused daydreams. _  
><em>

"What the hell just happened?" Naruto muttered to himself. He looked at the clock on Ichigo's desk and found it half an hour later then when he last checked. "When did that happen?!" He exclaimed, and with wide eyes he looked back up at the ceiling which now looked much more ominous then before.

He shivered and added off-white ceilings to his mental list of things to avoid, right next to Urahara, Urahara's drugs, Soul Society, and that crazy cat lady down the street that kept calling him Sweetie Pie and tried to capture him to drag back to her cat asylum of a house.

"Okay, I definitely need to get out of the house." Naruto said, talking to himself absentmindedly in the empty room. "And find some more ramen since I ate the last three. And I should probably stop talking to myself too. Yeah, sounds good."

Nodding to himself, he rose and wandered downstairs to exit through the broken window.

_Crash._

"Yuck, really, who throws out rotting fish like that? I'm going to have to go swimming in the fountain in the park again... It was bad enough last time, I mean, really don't those people have something better to do then stare at a fox that's just trying to not look and smell like a seafood stand? It's called common curtesy, people. Learn it. And I'm still talking to myself. This day is just getting better by the minute..." He growled as he jumped out of the trash can which he had landed in, spilling it in the process and shook off the pieces of decomposing fish bits. The orange fox stalked out of the alley between the two houses, muttering under his breath as he did so and ignoring the Kurosakis' neighbor, a wrinkled old lady that squawked at him everyday and was probably the one who called the animal control everyday from her rocking chair on the porch which he had never seen her move from. Which was quite creepy really and he just tried not to think of the implications of it whenever his sensitive nose burnt from her smell, a mixture of too strong flowery perfume and stuffy old person.

_I should come out at night sometime and see if she actually leaves that chair. I wouldn't be surprised if all she does is sit there and yell at everyone that passes-_

He felt it before he heard it.

A gut-wrenching howl tore through the air and a chill went down his spine, leaving him feeling like he'd taken a dip in ice cold water. His head jerked up to look at the sky which seemed much darker then it had been a few seconds ago. His eyes immediately went to the steadily widening crack in the middle of the sky from which a stream of black and white creatures were pouring out from.

He looked around franticly and didn't like what he saw. It was rush hour right now and almost everyone was out of their homes and in the open._ Shit! How am I going to get everyone out of here! I need to get everyone somewhere that I can protect from the Hollows. But I won't be able to fend off all of them! I need to find Ichigo, we'll have to work together to fight off the Hollows but they'll still overwhelm us eventually so what do we- _Naruto stopped, his panicked thoughts halting abruptly. What was he thinking? He didn't have any way to defend the humans! They could probably defend themselves even better then he could if they were able to see the Hollows. Compared to Ichigo, what did Naruto have? What could he do? Bite them?

_Yes, bite them, and tear them. Rip out their throats with your fangs and slash at their eyes with your claws. Let them kneel before you, begging for mercy right before you deliver the killing blow and devour their bodies, tearing through their ugly, naked skin right down to the bone-_ Naruto blinked, feeling slightly dazed and looked around at the clueless, _ignorant humans- No._ Naruto thought, breaking off his own thought suddenly. Something was wrong, he didn't think like, that he wasn't that evil-_hunter in the shadows, blood soaked fur, a hunger aching throughout his entire being, playing with his prey, seeing the terror in their eyes right before it leaks out like that crimson blood everywhere-_ _NO!_

His breath started to come short and fast and his eyes were wide taking in the _prey, full of life for the taking_- _People! They're people! Not prey, people! Humans who can think and feel! Humans who can talk and love and hate! Humans just like-_

_Like what? Like you? You're nothing like them! You're a beast, a demon, the monster that comes to devour humans in the night! You're a kitsune! Killer of a million pathetic humans, devourer of a billion souls! You live only for yourself. The only thing you can do is hurt others and grow. Grow in strength, grow in hunger, grow in the shadows of your prey's hearts! Make them live in fear! Make them bow before you! Make them worship you! Let them assume their rightful place of groveling in the dirt!_

Naruto stood frozen in fear as he listened to that voice-his voice- speak to him of all his doubts and insecurities. He wasn't human. He wasn't even a fox. He was a demon. And really, what good could a demon do? He was born to eat souls and kill. Kill, hunt, _make their blood fly and their flesh fill the empty void in your stomach even though you know it can never be filled no matter how hard you try-_

"AHHH!" A scream ripped him violently from his thoughts. He forced himself to move in the direction of the scream and saw a Hollow looming over the body of a middle-aged man. The woman who had screamed was running towards it because to her the man had probably just seemed to suddenly fall over for no reason. All around Naruto, other people were also starting to move towards the body, some calling an ambulance on their phones, not knowing that the man was already dead, even as the blood leaked out of him. Not knowing, they were running to the body _and right to the killer._ It was hard to tell exactly but the look on the black and white bird-like face of the Hollow was definitely one of sick glee. Flapping its stubby and semi-useless wings, it hopped off the body and prepared itself to feast, beak wide open revealing rows of pointed teeth stretching into darkness. It leered at the woman who had first screamed and was closest and lunged forward clamping it's mouth around her torso and spraying the blood through the air. _  
><em>

The sharp metallic scent hit Naruto like a physical blow. He stumbled, and his eyes widened as his mouth parted slightly, letting the light hit his glistening canines. Something connected in his mind(_as something else broke with a desolate cry_) and then he flew and lunged and _killed_. _  
><em>

The bird Hollow's body three times his size hung limply from his jaws which were clamped around it's neck. It stayed there for a moment, motionless and without any resemblance of life before it dissolved away into spirit particles which shined and absorbed into Naruto's body.

A rush electrocuted his body, a sense of euphoria and power that filled every cell of his body. If Naruto had been conscious at that moment he might have described it as if he had just had a lick of water after not having anything to drink for weeks.

But by that time there was not even a scrap of Naruto's consciousness left in his mind. The one thing moving his body was the sheer power of hunger.

Hunger for blood. Hunger for souls. Hunger for _power._

_._

_._

His mouth opened wide and the kitsune roared to the skies.

.

.

Every Hollow in the sky froze as a deep and furious roar rose above all other noises. Ichigo looked at Ishida, but the teen looked just as confused as him.

"What is that?" He asked but the other teen wasn't given a chance to answer as all of the Hollows around them started to chatter excitedly and continue attacking the Shinigami and the Quincy with even stronger force.

"It's the Hunter!" They cried. "The Hunter has come! The Hunter has returned!"

.

.

That day a fox could be seen racing through Karakura. Orange fur turned crimson from blood dripped from the fox's body but none of it was the creatures. From one Hollow to the next it attacked. It tore out throats, ripped apart bodies with it's claws, and became a red blur, not even giving it's victims a chance to react. Cold blue eyes tore it's victims apart just looking at them and a feeling of death hung around the beast, scaring off any humans near enough to feel the oppressive aura.

No one noticed when the single black tipped tail split into two.

Least of all the fox.


	13. Chapter 13: The Watchers

**Chapter 13: The Watchers**

By the time that shades of dark purple and red were spreading through the night sky, police tape had been put up, officers had inspected, reports had been made, theories formed, and a crowd of horrified people were gawking at the wreckage before them.

Entire buildings smashed into pieces. Dozens of bodies laying in the street, looking as if they had simply collapsed where they were if it had not been for the red liquid that stained their clothes.

And no one had a clue as to what could have possibly done this. Cameras, witnesses, they all said the same thing. People had just started to die on the streets for no reason. There was no pattern, no specific cause of death. The murder weapon wasn't even determined to be the same. Autopsies came up with results from things like dinosaur-sized teeth or a decaying airborne poison to death by a hundred invisible blades the size of feathers.

News reporters and shocked witnesses crowded the streets, all trying to get closer to the area which had been barricaded off by the police.

"I don't know what I saw! There was nothing! I was just walking along and this man- just a young-looking guy- oh god, his parents are probably so worried and he's not coming-" A woman told a cameraman franticly, practically on the verge of tears, her face covered in scrapes and dirt. "He was only ten feet in front of me! It could have been me! The ground just erupted under him! I got hit by rocks from the explosion and the next thing I remember is kneeling by his body, looking at his face and I- he was so-" She burst into tears as Urahara walked by, pushing his way urgently through the crowd.

He passed similar scenes as he went by but his face did not change from the emotionless and serious expression it was set in. When he finally emerged the throng he paused for a moment, looking at nothing in particular but his eyebrows furrowed slightly and his pace when he set out again was more worried and anxious then before. An afterimage of his green coat blurred in the air for a millisecond after he flashstepped away past police officers and yellow tape to inside a demolished building with only a portion of its roof remaining and the only thing holding that up was the semi-collapsed remains of the walls.

To any police officer which risked knocking down the whole thing on top of them to look in that moment, all they would have seen would be a man with a long green coat and a strange striped bucket hat standing in front of something large, orange, and presumably canine from the deep growling noises that came from it as it struggled under what used to have been a steel pillar to hold up the ceiling.

Urahara sighed, tipping back his head as he looked around the rubble idly. Naruto's head snapped around to look Urahara's at the sound of his sigh and the growling turned louder into a predatory rumble.

The shopkeeper took no notice of this, wandering casually to a jagged boulder just out of reach of the kitsune's snapping jaws and dusting broken glass off before sitting on it, talking as he did so. "I swear, you're as bad as Ichigo. You both seem to know what the worst situation is and run to it."

"Why, just a few hours ago I checked up on him. Made a new playmate, managed to destroy the city and overwhelm himself and his new friend with his own reiatsu in the process. He could become great someday with reiatsu like that if he doesn't manage to kill himself before then. And you!" He gestured dramatically and exasperatedly at the kitsune who snapped at him, bloody teeth a second away from closing on flesh. "You went on a nice little rampage! Didn't kill anything besides Hollows as far as I can tell but that's probably because they just seemed a better treat at the time. You got to go and fill yourself up and leave all the hard work to me! Granted, you were a bit intoxicated by that Hollow Bait which led you on a blood lust filled killing spree but next time you should clean up after yourself when you eat."

Naruto barked angrily, the whites of his eyes showing as he stubbornly struggled even more, ignoring the blood that seeped through his fur at this action. Urahara looked annoyed at him, "I guess I have to get you free now, don't I? And stop doing that! It just makes it worse! Thankfully I don't have to clean that up. You should be able to heal yourself by now. Just calm down for a moment and I'll get you out."

He pointed a finger at the rock and muttered an incantation under his breath causing a ray of red energy to shoot out and slam into the rock, crushing it into pieces. Ignoring his injuries, Naruto immediately lunged at Urahara but another quick incantation later found the fox restrained by lines of light which bound his legs and his tails to his torso.

Urahara strolled casually closer, crouching down to sit next to the writhing fox. He stared speculatively at the fox for a moment before speaking quietly and seriously, "There's not much I can do to calm you. The best thing I could do would at best leave a lingering chance that you would revert. At worst it would only work temporarily before you were stuck in this state for the rest of your days. If you want to ever be Naruto again then you have to do this now. If not, I will be the one to put you down."

The kitsune's eyes glinted with hatred and madness, his teeth snapped unceasingly at Urahara and saliva dripped from his mouth onto the ground. His orange fur bristled and with the dried blood which caked it the fox's futile efforts to escape it's bindings made it almost look like dancing fire in the sunlight. It's a good analogy, Urahara thought to himself. Fire appears warm, it brings in people, makes them think it's tame, makes them think they can grasp onto that beauty but as soon as you touch it its real nature comes out. It takes hold of you, devours everything in its path and scorches everything it touches. A dangerous beauty.

Naruto had seemed tame at first. When he had first sensed the kitsune's acidic reitsu appear in Karakura, he had been unsure of what to think of him. Every particle of his soul had told him to run Benihime through it before it could become any stronger, damn the consequences. But the scientist in him, the one who had been the Captain of the 12th Division, experimenting and researching, had been curious. He had visited him when he had first appeared. The second he had felt its reitsu appear he had dropped what he had been doing and flash stepped to where he felt it.

Yoruichi was already there by the time he arrived, in Shinigami form, kneeling in front of the unconscious body. To an observer she would have looked to be just casually observing it but Urahara knew her well enough to see the tension in her muscles, ready to react at any second. She nodded to him when he arrived but stayed kneeling, keeping watch which gave him the ability to relax just enough to think on what this could be.

Neither of them spoke. After centuries of working together and even more time together as fellow fugitives, they both knew each other's abilities and personalities to the point of practically being able to predict what the other would do. Each had their own strengths and weaknesses, Urahara's being the manipulator, the strategist, and the inventor while Yoruichi was the spy and the best assassin in the entire world, living or dead. They had taught and learned from each other certain things and over time became a seamless team, the hand and the weapon.

And now as they stood there, words were not necessary. They were both skilled enough to be able to sense changes and abnormalties in reitsu and from what they could sense this definitely counted as an abnormality. This creature had just appeared. There was no other explanation for it. There was no trace of the disturbances that a rip through the Dangai like a Garganta would cause.

Urahara frowned to himself. _But that can't be possible,_ he thought as he cautiously fine-tuned his senses to a smaller radius around him, _There's no corrupted chakra besides the Hollow itself's and even that is strange. It keeps shifting, from an average amount to Menos level. And the size this one is would place it at Adjuchas level. But where's the bone plates on it?_

The Hollow was currently curled up against the wall so neither Yoruichi or Urahara were able to see its mask and if it weren't for the reitsu(which now that Urahara focused on it it felt strange, slightly off) radiating off of it then Urahara would have instantly guessed without a doubt that it was just a normal animal. No hollow he had ever seen had bright colors like that or that much of it. It even had fur and not a single piece of bone plating or exoskeleton which was as much a requirement for Hollows as the color white was. How could a creature like this be a Hollow?

A feeling of curiosity filled him and it was the scientist in him once more(it was likely that said scientist was going to get him killed one day) that made him bend over, and lean as close as he dared to the Hollow's face, muscles tense and ready to spring away at the first sign of consciousness. There was little light in the alley being early morning but with bright orange fur like that it practically glowed in the dark.

He didn't gasp, didn't say anything, just a sudden widening of the eyes before he reined it into the mask he had perfected over the years but Yoruichi immediately stood and looked at what he had seen. A few seconds later she was back in her place kneeling and like before but now vastly different from before their minds were working furiously.

Urahara scoured his mind thoroughly for any information on what this creature could be with a hint of franticness as he continually kept coming back to _the most acidic reitsu he'd ever seen_ and _has no mask._

He was running through different possibilities at lightning speed in his head, thinking of postulates and conjectures one after another, theorizing every possible way this could happen when he came to one that was such a revelation that the gears in his head suddenly ground to a halt and he did gasp.

Staring at the limp body in front of him with shock, he slowly spoke to a questioning Yoruichi, "Do you remember when I was looking for information on Hiyori and the other's Hollowfication and I found the book on kitsune?"

Quickly going through the same emotions as Urahara but carefully pulling her face back into a serious expression she replied questioningly, trusting Urahara's ability but unsure how it was even possible, "But they've been dead for centuries. How could a young one like this one crop up? It's parents would have had to avoided being detected and they would have never let any offspring out of their sight."

"I'm absolutely certain," He said, staring past her at something on the floor underneath the kitsune. "How else could it have a shadow?"

And that was what had been the final proof that that vulnerable, dirty fox was the forgotten but still feared kitsune. They had come very close to killing Naruto then, his neck just inches from the blade at one point. But they hadn't. They decided to watch him, to see what he would do in a world that had long since forgotten he existed as anything other then a myth and an animal incapable of higher thought. They watched as he wandered through the town in a confused daze, managed to almost die from being hit by a car, and alright, he might have given that one man directions to the Kurosaki instead of an animal clinic. They kept their hands on the hilts of their zanpakuto when he met a little girl, in an out of the way street, the perfect place for him to succumb to his instincts and wondered why every time he used his more supernatural skills he seemed more confused then they did. They watched and let him build a life in the Kurosaki home.

Some would call it mercy. Others compassion.

Urahara called it curiosity.

* * *

><p>Urahara sighed and opened his eyes, lazily blinking a few times and stretching to work out the kinks that had formed in his back from taking a cat nap leaning against a piece of rubble. He took his time, purposefully not looking in Naruto's direction but a low growl forced him to glance over and see the inevitable.<p>

The fox was no longer struggling but that was more due to exhaustion as it panted heavily then any sudden love or recognition to Urahara's face. It still bared its teeth at him viscously and its newly healed ribs vibrated in its chest as it growled as menacingly as it could at him.

Urahara looked up at the sky, checking its position against where he last remembered it being. _Four hours. _

He sighed again suddenly feeling very tired as he reached for Benihime. Yoruichi would be upset. She liked the fox quite a bit, telling Urahara it felt "like rooting for the underdog." And if he were to be perfectly honest with himself, Naruto had been growing on him too. He acted like he would like nothing more then to never see the shopkeeper again but with the small number of friends he had, Urahara was almost certain that Naruto was beginning to see him as a friend or at the very least someone he could trust.

Now as he pulled out Benihime slowly, he wished that reason would return to those blue eyes, that his face would shift into a confused but annoyed look that he somehow managed to pull off on a fox's face. If he could have, he would have seen if he could study more of the kitsune's powers, looked for some way he could take away or make Shinji and Hiyori's Hollowfication easier for them. Maybe one day Naruto could have developed enough to get an advantage over Aizen.

But none of that would be possible now as the savage look on Naruto's face showed nothing but the raw instincts and urges of a wild beast. Benihime leveled itself at Naruto's throat, which rumbled with even louder growls and broke into barks as he found it in himself to struggle even more in the sight of imminent death. Urahara was just about to strike when a distant shout stilled his blade and surprisingly enough Naruto.

"Ramen! RAMEN! Come on, you stupid fox! Come out already! RAMEN!"

It was just within earshot and was faint but audible in the quiet, broken structure but it seemed to have done something.

Naruto was still, nose quivering slightly as he sniffed the air, and his ears, which had been flat against his skull just seconds before, were now cautiously perking back up, straining to hear Ichigo's shouts. They came again, this time louder, meaning that Ichigo himself was getting closer to where they were.

Urahara stayed frozen, not daring to move, as Naruto blinked, once, twice, three times, and then-

"Urahar- WHOA. Why is there a sword pointing at me? Why are you pointing a sword at me? Put down the sword, Urahara. Where did you even get a sword from?" He twitched in what was likely an attempt to back away and noticed his bindings for the first time. "Why am I tied up? And where the hell are we?"

"Ramen! I've got food! You want some ramen? RAMEN!"

"Ichigo?" Naruto looked confused then seemed to add two and two together in his brain and turned to glare at Urahara. "You have some serious explaining to do."

"Why don't you go let Ichigo know you are okay first." Urahara said, dispelling the bindings, sliding Benihime back into her hilt, and hiding his relieved smile behind his fan. Naruto still looking very annoyed but turned eagerly to run out of the structure all the same when he noticed that his backside seemed a bit heavier and more balanced then before.

Urahara's grin grew to encompass his entire face when Naruto's jaw dropped his eyes widened and the two tails which were the very source of his shock stood on end.

"Wh- How- What?!- Wha-Wh-Wh-"

Urahara would have been happy to watch him babble incoherently to himself until he eventually passed out from shock but Ichigo appeared to be fast approaching and that was one surprise he was waiting to see. "Kitsune, remember? Multiple tails." Seeing Naruto continue to stare at him with the most shell shocked and dumb founded expression he had ever seen he decided to hurry it along and say, "Try to make it disappear. Imagine just having one tail and keep that image in your mind."

Naruto nodded slowly, still sneaking surprised glances at his tails as he closed his eyes.

A few seconds later, Urahara was happily surprised to see that his advice had actually worked as one of the tails rapidly shrunk into the fox's spine, bone structure molding itself as it did it. _Looks like there is some truth in those myths. So what does that mean for the other parts of them?_

Naruto shook himself, looking thoroughly disturbed and unsettled but seemed to forget it when he heard Ichigo call once more for him and sent Urahara a look that said, "We will be talking about this later" before running off.

Urahara peered around the corner of a boulder of cement just in time to see Naruto tackle Ichigo from behind. He chuckled to himself when he saw Ichigo grunt in pain and whack Naruto over the head trying to look annoyed but failing to hide his relief.

He was still smiling when a black cat walked up to sit next to him on a piece of rubble, also laughing silently.

**It's done! It's done! IT'S DONE! WHOO! PARTY TIME! *One short party later of eating chocolate***

**Phew, that is a LOAD off my chest. So much has happened since I last updated. I moved in with one of my friends for a month, started school, FOUND A HOUSE, MOVED INTO HOUSE, moved out of friend's house and many other small things. That's my official reason. My unofficial reason is that I'm also very good at procrastination. Getting me to write is like training a dog: A series of rewards and punishments. Punishment: I couldn't read Mark of Athena, the latest Percy Jackson book. Reward: Get to eat chocolate and MARK OF ATHENA, HERE I COME!**

***still dancing from writing chapter***

**Pretty much all of this chapter was written in the past three days. Someone needs to give Kitsune Foxfire a reward for moving my lazy butt.**

**Too tired to worry about horrible writing...**


	14. Chapter 14: The Beginning of the End

**Disclaimer: How did this thing he even start? Did someone get sued for not saying the obvious statement of, "I don't own this. Do I look like some middle aged Japanese man who makes millions of dollars yet decide to waste my time writing bad fanfiction?" Well, I'm not. Don't own anything more then this Chubaca bobble head. I'm proud of that.**

**Chapter 14: The Beginning of the End**

"..." Naruto poked a paw at his second tail(well, it could also have been his first tail. He couldn't really tell but he had singled this one out as the weird one today.) It twitched away from his paw before it could make contact.

His eyes narrowed. "So that's how you want to play, eh?" He muttered to himself and slowly raised both of his front paws up so he was sitting on his hindquarters and cautiously stared at the tail whose tip was playfully twitching back and forth.

_Twitch. Twitch. Flick. Twitch._

A bead of sweat rolled off of his fur, splashed on the ground loudly in the otherwise quiet room. Naruto tensed at the noise and the tail stilled for a moment, the orange fur bristling. _Now!_ He slammed his paws down, lunging forward but the tail noticed and swooped out from underneath him to wave behind him with its twin.

He glared at it. "One day, I am going to- Wait, which one is it?" The tails stilled and the fur on them which had been slightly raised relaxed as Naruto looked at his paws in confusion. "It was right wasn't it? No, that was yesterday. But I remember deciding to do the one on the side I write with today so it's left. Or is that right? Have I ever even written before?" He mumbled, trailing off before seeming to reach a decision in his head and glare at both of them evenly. "Well it's one of you anyways. And besides, One is just as guilty as Two! You betrayed me and I dunno, cloned yourself? Yeah, you cloned yourself! How could you!" He huffed and turned his head away in disgust.

He sneaked a look out of the corner of his eye. One and Two had drooped down, almost touching the floor. He looked away again for a few more seconds before his resolve crumbled and he sniffed a bit, "Aww, I can't stay mad at you guys." They perked up, happily waving again. "Paw bump?" He asked, twisting around and stretching out a limb as best he could. The tails were so excited they whacked him in the face instead of the offered paw. "Ouch!" He said, voice muffled by the paw which he had pressed to his nose. "Okay, face smack. I can work with that."

He took a bite of his stolen hot dog, simultaneously kicking out a hind leg to whack away a squirrel which had been trying to sneak up on his food moments before. Sure, he had basically lost his mind for half a day and eaten dozens of Hollows and managed to grow a completely new appendage just a day ago but after an initial hour of freaking out and panicking as Urahara watched with a smile on his face, the bastard, nothing had really changed. And he was bored.

It had been hard enough to go out when the city was crowded with tourists but now the whole place was swarming with police officers who had labelled him a "possible threat" since there had been bodies found torn apart by teeth and claws and being the largest free-roaming carnivore in the area blame had fallen to him. Still, his experience with the off-white walls had taught him that given enough time, boredom, and possibly hallucinative shades of color, you could go off the walls insane.

So he had grabbed a hot dog from a kind food stand owner who probably hadn't been as happy to see him as Naruto was and he had just set out to find the nearest forested place he could find which turned out to be a small area of trees on the outer edges of Karakura, just in sight of the gray buildings but far enough away that his nose could get a break while he relaxed in the branches of a tree and ate his hot dog mostly in peace except for a few daring squirrels.

Naruto finished off his stolen meal and rested his head on his paws with a disappointed sigh. There hadn't been any ramen left that he could find(Ichigo was getting better at hiding) and the hot dog hadn't even begun to satisfy the black hole he proudly called a stomach. He briefly considered going back for another one but with another visit his benevolent caterer might get angry enough to try stabbing at him with a fork while he ran off.

Besides, there was also something calming in lying around on a branch, surrounded by leaves dappled with sunlight. It gave him a warm feeling in his chest like he had when he was sneaked scraps by Yuzu or lying on the couch while Ichigo watched TV and the teen would scratch his head thinking Naruto was asleep. Trees felt just as comfortable to him as sleeping on Ichigo's bed while he waited for Ichigo and Rukia to get back from school.

Both places felt like home but in different ways. The Kurosaki's made him feel like he belonged but so did the forest with a sense of duty and regret that he couldn't understand. While he wasn't sure why or how, he knew without a doubt that his past was linked to a forest, to monstrous sized trees, and leaves. Leaves especially. Everywhere you looked there were leaves. Fallen from trees, hanging over roads and dappling them with their waving shadows, carved into stone...

At the back of his mind, he could just barely see it. A shape, a design. A symbol haunted his past memories and his dreams. Naruto was sure that one day, it would be the key to his memories. And then...

A thought made him deathly still. He had spent hours before wondering what his life must have been like and how it would feel to finally _know_ who he was, what he was. The last kitsune? A survivor? A killer?

But he had never thought about what he would do when and if he could restore his memory. If he had a family or friends to go back to... some type of home...

Would he leave the Kurosaki's behind? Leave in the night for them to wake up to cold spot on the couch where he slept? Leave Yuzu to cry and Karin with no one to play ball with? Never finding a new hidden cup of instant ramen hidden in some cabinet by Ichigo or chewing on Kon? Never again see the annoyed look on Ichigo's face when he came home from school and saw that Naruto had shed all over his bed while he was gone? Would he ever find someone else that knew just the right way to scratch behind his ear like Rukia?

Leave all of that?

Technically, he could only remember being awake and living for a few months but it felt so much longer then that. Living with the Kurosaki's was all he knew. He couldn't imagine living in a home where he didn't wake up every morning to Isshin trying to glomp him and know that he would never see the only family he knew ever again.

_Well that turned depressing quickly._ He thought to himself and made a silent promise to himself that he was going to enjoy a nice nap in this tree and see if he could knock over that food stand and grab a whole mouthful of hotdogs before making a run for it. His mouth watered a bit at the thought and he made sure he was comfortable on the branch before closing his eyes and letting the darkness of sleep overtake him.

.

.

A sudden string of swearing broke out right underneath the branch he was sleeping on.

_Okay, I deserved that. I was just daring the big guys upstairs to take another shot at me. At least it was good for a laugh. _He groaned internally, annoyed but begrudgingly so. Cracking one eye open regretfully then the next he turned his head to look down at the person who was still firing off curses with the typical air of someone who was pissed but wasn't entirely sure who to be pissed at. So most of these were imaginative but pointless yet impressive all the same.

The man trailed off into angry mutters. "Search the city. Follow her reiatsu ribbon. Signal me when you're done. He knows I'm horrible with those kinds of things! How am I going to sense her? And what does he mean by signal me? Just start jumping up and down in the sky waving my arms? I don't know why the R&D division couldn't have given us just one messenger. They've got millions of those butterflies, sparing one wouldn't have hurt them. Probably just like seeing me suffer because the Spirit King knows Byakuya won't. Aristocratic stuck up ice cube..."

_Spirit King? Find her? _Naruto didn't know anything about butterflies and ribbons or whatever he was talking about but the other things he was saying were starting to ring bells in his head. Urahara had danced around the subject as usual but he had teasingly hinted that Rukia giving Ichigo her powers wouldn't make her superiors happy. And only a Shinigami would know about reiatsu and the Shinigami King...

Of course, it did help with his deduction that the man was wearing Shinigami robes like Ichigo's, had come out of a weird sliding door in midair that was disappearing before Naruto's eyes, and was holding a picture of Rukia. That did help quite a bit.

Naruto studied the man as he made one of his tails shrink back into being one tail. It was a weird feeling and without taking his eyes off the man, he stretched a leg out a bit to get used to having one tail again then lifted the other one to do the same but discovered himself to now have gravity working against him because he misplaced his foot and fell off the branch.

_Thump! "_Gah!"

Naruto groaned and there was a muffled noise underneath him as the Shinigami tried to speak but found a mouthful of orange fur instead. Naruto was content to lay there for a few minutes cursing gravity and recovering from the shock of falling but he found himself roughly shoved over instead.

"What the hell?" A hand on his scruff lifted him up and and he found himself staring at a tattooed and bewildered face. "Where did you come from?"

Naruto pointed a paw up.

The man looked up and then back at Naruto like he was crazy. "The tree? You just spend your afternoons sitting in trees? How did you even get up there? Are you an overgrown squirrel or something?"

Naruto growled, his tail bristling angrily which probably didn't help the image of not being a squirrel.

The Shinigami scoffed and dropped Naruto suddenly. He landed on his feet and stared at the Shinigami at a loss of what to do. Should he warn Rukia? Should he attack the guy? Run? _Could he even be able to sense I'm a kitsune? He did say he was horrible at that type of things and I think that not every Shinigami can do it since Rukia hasn't been able to as far as I can tell. But maybe that's just because she has no powers?_

Naruto continued to stare at the man and he stared back at Naruto. They stayed like that for a minute till the Shinigami seemed to remember that he was supposed to be looking for Rukia because he suddenly broke the staring contest with an impatient huff and started to walk in the direction of Karakura.

Naruto watched him for a moment before shrugging and running to catch up with him since he figured that even if he were to try and warn Rukia then he still wouldn't know how to get to her at school so he might as well tag along with this guy and protect her if need be.

He caught up with him quickly and when the man looked down at him questioningly he returned the look. "Why are you following me? I've got nothing for you to eat! Shoo!"

Naruto tilted his head and flopped one ear over, trying the cute method which he had perfected from begging for food with Yuzu, Isshin, and Rukia.

"You'll just slow me down." He sounded more like he was trying to convince himself now.

A black tipped tail started to wag ever so slightly and Naruto amped up the cuteness level by opening his mouth just enough for his tongue to stick out his mouth lopsidedly.

The Shingami sighed and Naruto inwardly cheered and outwardly licked his nose. "Fine. But if you slow me down I'm leaving you behind! And you're going to have to leave before I meet up with Byakuya! I don't know what he'd think if he found out I picked up a random dog off the streets."

_I'm not a dog! _Naruto barked, dropping the cute look and baring his teeth. _Sure, I'm a bit big for a fox and my coloring is unusual but the differences are still there!_

"Hey, don't go snapping at me because I could turn you into sliced dog meat easily." He said cockily.

_In your dreams, idiot. I could take a chunk out of you before you could say 'kitsune'._

He smirked down at Naruto and the fox could see him reading that torture device of a collar around his neck. "Come on, Ramen? What kind of a name is that? If we see this Kurosaki guy who owns you then point him out to me and I'll ask him why he picked out such a dumb name for you. And if we're going to look for Rukia together then I guess you should know my name." He moved his sunglasses up to rest on top of his red hair. "Abarai Renji, Vice-Captain of the 6th Division."

**Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you have expandable pants for all the food you're going to eat! And I wish a great day to all of the people who don't have Thanksgiving in their countries. That's right. I'm talking to you, my readers from ****Bangladesh, Singapore, Sweden, Peru, Iceland, Australia, El Salvador, France, New Zealand, United Kingdoms,Germany, South Africa, Mexico, Canada even though you've already had Thanksgiving, and many more I ran out of time to read!**


	15. Chapter 15:Squirrels, Hairclips,and Plot

**It hurts just to look at this. Each and every word was resistant to being written.**

**Chapter 15: Squirrels, Hairclips, and Plot**

**"**He said she was pretending to be a student at a school around here. It was a certain type but I can't remember." Renji said as they walked towards Karakura. "Something starting with 'H'... Hidden? Hallowed? Hawaiian?"

__You really don't know anything about modern culture? Even I know that.__ Naruto stopped suddenly. ..._I know more about things then you. I'm not the most clueless person anymore! I KNOW MORE THEN YOU!_ He grinned, tail flicking back and forth rapidly. _So this is what that feels like. It's nice.__  
><em>

Renji looked at him with an annoyed face. "You're laughing at me, aren't you?" He scowled and picked up the speed in his walking making Naruto have to move faster to keep up with his shorter legs. "Eh, it probably doesn't matter. If I see her I'll recognize her even if she is dressed as a Hawaiian student."

He stopped, and grimaced at Naruto before suddenly grabbing Naruto's scruff roughly. "This is taking too long. I knew you would slow me down."

Naruto scowled at him. _Well, sorry you impatient jerk. Let's just start running then because I know for a fact that I could run much- _His words were jerking out of his throat and turned into a strangled and surprised noise when suddenly the whole world blurred around him and he was yanked along by Renji's strong hold on his scruff.

He flopped to the ground limply when Renji released him and had to take a minute to get air back in his lungs and let his heart slow down. Once that was done he snapped around and glared up at Renji.

_Give a guy some warning before you do... _He blinked. _Wait, what did you do? _He looked to his right...

And instantly scrambled backwards. _Whoa!_ He looked hesitantly back down at the **very** long drop that he could very easily imagine his furry body falling down. _ARE YOU INSANE?! _He barked at Renji. _Why did you just suddenly decide to leap onto a skyscraper like a giant super powered rabbit?! Do you want me to die from a heart attack?!_

Renji smirked at him, "What? Scared of heights?"

Naruto glared at him and stood up all the way and moved a bit closer to the edge though he still made sure to keep a foot between him and the side and a wary eye on Renji in case the guy was a psycho that enjoyed kidnapping innocent foxes and pushing them off of tall buildings.

The redhead laughed and started looking intently at the expansive view they had of the entire city. Naruto sat and watched him for a minute before he started to get an itch, right at the tip of his tail. He swished it back and forth a few times but all it did was make the itch grow and spread to the base of his tail and from there into his hindquarters.

He shuffled his feet and his tail started to swish even faster. He actually thought it was starting to move to the beat of some song he couldn't remember but he was sure used to get stuck in his head all the time. He tried to remember what the words to it were when the itch started to tingle in his ears and he flicked them back and forth as he sat up then sat down again restlessly. Finally when the itch made its way to his nose he gave up and thumped his head against Renji's shoulder to get his attention.

_I'm bored! _He whined. _Give me something to do or at least get me off of this skyscraper!_

_"_I never said it would be any fun to stake out around the city and try to find one girl! You can either be quiet or I'll take you right back where I found you!" Renji said gritting his teeth angrily.

Naruto weighed his options; stick around with Rukia's stalker to try and protect her but have to sit around and do NOTHING for hours or leave stalker and run around the city trying to find Rukia to warn her?

He started barking loudly and as annoyingly yippy as he could.

With an annoyed growl, Renji grabbed Naruto and the fox found himself being jerked along again and dropped onto the soft grass in the forest where he had met Renji.

"I knew I shouldn't have taken you along! I just wasted my time! How am I supposed to find one girl in an entire city of-"

"So Rukia, are you and Kurosaki dating?"

Renji grabbed Naruto and jumped into the branches of the tree above them.

About ten yards away from them they could see Rukia doing a spit tank surrounded by other teenage girls wearing what Naruto assumed to be the high school uniform for girls though it did look a bit ridiculous and he didn't really understand why a school would want them all to wear skirts.

Renji looked over at Naruto somewhat wide-eyed and said in a stunned voice, "Are you some type of lucky dog or something?"

Naruto sighed. _Nope, Lady Luck just has a very sadistic type of humor._

"Now I don't have to go searching around town for her! I just have to find a way to signal Byakuya then we'll have to wait until she leaves school and- Hey! Where are you going?" Renji asked startled when Naruto jumped down from the branch and started to trot towards the girls. "Get back here before she notices you!"

Too late.

"Ramen?"

"Ichigo's oversized cat?"

"How did you get out? What are you doing here?"

_Hiya Rukia, Orihime! _He barked happily with his tail waving. He turned to Tatsuki and glared. _Tomboy._

"You guys know him?" Another high school girl that Naruto didn't recognize asked cautiously.

"He's Kurosaki-kun's pet fox." Orihime chimed in cheerfully, putting down her food to put out a hand for Naruto to sniff.

Naruto's tail wagging picked up speed when as he realized how much food was on eye level with him in the hands of girls who would love to offer some for a cute look or the chance to pet his fur._ Have I told you I love you today, Rukia? Oh, and there's this shinigami guy stalking you from that tree over there but we'll get to that. Is that roasted pork I smell?_

_"_I have to tell Ichigo he messed up locking you in again. Maybe one day we'll keep you from running around town doing whatever you please. You could get lost again and that would be very bad for all of us." Rukia grumbled under her breath but gave him a piece of meat anyways. As he snapped up the piece his eyes connected with hers for a second and he got an eerie feeling that she knew exactly what had happened last time he had gotten 'lost'. Then the other girls had started to cluster around him giving him food and petting him and the thought fled his mind quickly.

Soon enough there was no more food and a bell was ringing, waking up Naruto from the doze he had slipped into somewhere between the head rubs and the belly scratches. The girl whose lap he was laying on pushed him off as politely as she could while rushing to pack up her lunch bag and go. Rukia looked like she should also be doing the same thing but looked torn as she glanced between the Naruto and the other girls who were already running in to the high school for their next classes.

_I'll be fine. Get to class._ Naruto barked, wishing he could just tell her but knowing it would probably have the opposite effect of what he wanted.

_One of these days..._ He thought to himself, as he took off running back towards Renji before Rukia could decide to skip school and bring him back to the house. Maybe after this whole thing with Renji and whoever this Byakuya guy was calmed down he could do it. Bring Ichigo, Rukia, and maybe even Kon to Urahara's house, have him explain it because Naruto definitely couldn't. How nice that would be, to just be able to talk to them and not have to hide his second tail or to know that if he ever became a merciless killer like last time he could depend on them to keep him from hurting anyone.

_I'll do it after Rukia deals with Renji. _Naruto thought resolutely, but there was a tight coil of apprehension at the prospect of revealing himself. _But what if they think I'm just a monster?_

"Why do you look so glum? You're the one who just got food and was able to sleep on a girl's lap. All I got to do was sit in a tree for half an hour and think about that lunch I never got to eat. That's your job, not mine, you overgrown squirrel." Renji asked, looking uncomfortable crouched on the branch as he was. Naruto just flicked an ear smugly at him and used a running start to leap onto the tree trunk and scramble up it by digging his claws in. With a proud huff he pulled himself up onto the tree branch and draped himself over it in a relaxed position.

"And really, what type of fox climbs trees? You sure you're not a squirrel?" Naruto growled at him and Renji smirked back teasingly before groaning as switched from crouching to sit on the branch stretching his legs and arms afterwards. "I can't signal Byakuya without Rukia noticing and if I leave to find him she might be gone by the time I get back. He'll just have to keep searching around town for her until I have her under control and ready to go."

Naruto snorted, disbelief on his face. Renji grinned. "Alright, he may have given me some extra paper work to do a few days ago but if anyone asks I do have a good alibi. Either way though, I'm still going to have to wait a while for her to get out of class and I have to wait till then. But at least I have you for compan- Aww, come on!"

Naruto was already running in the direction of Urahara's shop.

* * *

><p><em>Come on, I don't have time for this! <em>He growled as he raced through a parking lot, ducking in between cars to try and make the car following him lose sight and think it lost him. Usually, he would hide under a car or in a bush when he wanted to lose the animal control officers but he was in too much of a hurry for that now. Renji was waiting to ambush Rukia as soon as she got out of school. Naruto only had a few hours till then!

He weaved through the cars until he spotted a fence that separated the parking lot from the backyards of the neighborhood behind it. _Yes! _He ran to it and managed to leap on, digging his claws into the chainlinks to pull himself up. Not breaking his pace or looking back at the car, he landed and ran through backyards till he was far from it before he finally flopped down in the shade of a bush to lay panting. _When did summer get here? Not a good season to have fur... _He pulled himself to his feet.

_I hope I can smell Urahara's shop from here. I have no idea where I am. _He blinked, as the sun glared into his eyes and was starting to walk to the front of the house when he felt it. A whoosh of air was all of the warning he got before suddenly there was a man in Shinigami robes standing in front of him.

He instantly tensed and backed away till his tail was brushing the bush behind him. The Shinigami stared at him impassively but Naruto's eyes were more focused on the man's hand on the handle of the sheathed katana at his waist. He looked up to see cold gray eyes, that were carefully emotionless. Naruto's eyes trailed further upwards...

He broke out laughing, a type of uncontrollable snicker that left him with no breath. _This really isn't the time_ he thought as he gasped for air but he took another peek at Byakuya's weird hair thing and he started laughing all over again. It really wasn't that funny but with how tense the situation was only to look up and see what looked like the Death God equivalent of the oversized barrettes Yuzu wore in her hair he couldn't keep it in.

When he had finally gotten himself back under control he was surprised to see that the Shinigami was still perfectly emotionless but he had now drawn out the katana until Naruto could see the gleaming metal. He growled deeply and bared his teeth trying to look more dangerous while subtly edging further into the hedge behind him. Inwardly, his thoughts were racing. _So this must be that Byakuya Renji was talking about. Wait, o__h shit..._ He started to curse himself internally while externally he looked around him for escape routes. _I should have just tried to pass myself off as a normal fox! Sure, he must be able to sense my reitsu but if I acted well enough he might have just let me live but no, I HAD to go and ruin the only little chance I had by laughing! And even if I run then this guy could probably catch up with me judging by that teleportation thingy he did just now. Heck, even Renji could catch up with me since he did that same thing earlier! Shit!_ _What do I do?!_

The sound of the rest of the katana being drawn out was a metallic scraping noise to Naruto's ears and without even noticing his growls grew louder and slightly more desperate as he tried to edge himself into a position where he could run past the Shinigami and flee.

However, Byakuya's eyes narrowed and he moved himself even closer to stop any chance of escape. He frowned at Naruto and when he spoke his voice was monotone and filled with authority. "Stop that growling. I know you can speak, Hollow."

Naruto glared but went silent. If the situation was any less life threatening then Naruto might have felt a bit of pride at how he managed to look calm while inwardly he was panicking.

Byakuya seemed to realize that Naruto was stubbornly not speaking as he only waited a moment before continuing his speech. "You must be very good at concealing your reitsu to be able to hide yourself from me that well. Even now I can't tell exactly what you are. You seem like to be an Adjuchas but your reitsu is much stronger then that. I'm sure Mayuri would give one of his regrowable limbs to study you but it might interfere with my job later to keep you alive. I'll just have to bring your corpse to him later." He leveled his sword at Naruto and moved into what Naruto guessed was the position for spearing your cornered enemies.

_If I'm going to die then I'm not going to do it cornered against a hedge like a powerless animal. I'm fast, maybe I'll surprise him enough to be able to get past him._There was no time to think of what he would do after to escape Byakuya and his unnatural speed. He simply let his instincts overtake him, let his teeth go to Byakuya's throat and his claws to rip his torso to shreds. He lunged forward.

A burning pain ripped through his side before he even made it all the way off the ground. He fell to the ground with a loud yelp and stared at Byakuya, shocked. The man hadn't even moved at all, from his face to his position. Another wound appeared on his body, this time tearing through the muscles in one of his front legs but this time Naruto had been staring straight at him and had been able to see a slight flicker.

Small cuts scattered themselves across his body, adding to the growing puddle of blood gathering underneath his body. Dots of black flickered in the edges of his vision as the precious liquid leaked out of his body. He struggled to stand only to find that he couldn't move his front leg and when he managed to push himself up with the other, a foot on his back pushed him back down causing his wounds to gush even more. He looked up to see Byakuya standing over him, his sword pointing right at his chest and a emotionless face.

_No... can't...leave... _His mind felt hazy and his thoughts were slow and lethargic. Blackness was starting to drown out everything else in his sight and he closed his eyes, ignoring the voice shouting in the back of his head telling him to keep them open.

He was so tired...

.

.

.

"Hello Mr. Kitsune!"


	16. Chapter 16: Here For You

****MWAHAHAHA! The lovely Kitsune Foxfire told me I was evil after reading this so that seemed as good a sign as any to post it.****

**Chapter 16: Here For You**

"Hello Mr. Kitsune!"

"You're a complit'and utter bastard, y'know?" Naruto grumbled, his words tumbling together and slurring. He groaned and his head rolled off a paw hitting cold and smooth metal. He frowned. "There's something wrong here.."

"Be a bit quieter, will you? We don't want them coming in to see a talking fox, do we? They'll think I'm even crazier then they already do." Urahara said quietly with the usual grin on his face, resting his weight on the back of his feet, squatting to look through a web of steel bars at Naruto who looked like he was starting to wake up more as he shook his head and started to stare around him at the small space he was stuck in.

"I need you to tell me how you ended up with those wounds. What did the shinigami look like? Did he introduce himself? Are you listening to me?" Naruto ignored him, his eyes crossing as he stared down his nose to where he was sticking his nose out as far as it would go with a look of complete seriousness and suspicion. His head snapped up.

"Yup, something's definitely wrong here!" He declared loudly, scrambling to stand up from his position sprawled on the floor but ended up hitting his head on the low ceiling, making a hollow thump and sending him falling back to the floor groaning in pain. Urahara also groaned. _I thought__ he would be pretty out of it but this is ridiculous. _He shook his head and tried to return the fox's attention to the conversation."Naruto."

"Wait a sec... It can't be... Not again..." Naruto attempted to lift a paw to look at it but because of his position of laying on top of various limbs he only managed to lift it a inch before it flopped back to the floor. This seemed to prove his suspicions right as he immediately started to wail despairingly. "Noooo! It's happened again!"

"_Naruto." _He repeated forcefully.

"Urahara! You gotta help me! Someone made me drunk! No, that's not right... Drugged! Yeah! They made me drugged! Those bastards! Can you believe it? I bet it was Urahara, that sneaky lil'-"

"Mr. Kurosaki?" A voice asked cautiously followed by brown haired woman in scrubs with an even more cautious look on her face.

Naruto tilted his head curiously and started to open his mouth- probably to drunkenly ramble on at her too but one glance from Urahara and a whispered word and suddenly there was invisible constraints around Naruto's snout. Ignoring the kicked-puppy look that Naruto was sending him, he smiled sheepishly at the woman with an embarrassed laugh as he scratched the back of his head. "Ah, Riko was it? Sorry, I kind of have this habit of saying what I think he would say. It's a funny little habit of mine. Say, you wouldn't mind giving me a bit more time, would you?"

She barely managed to stutter a confirmation before Urahara was there, smiling at her thankfully and nodding as he opened the door for her. "Oh, thanks so much. I promise I won't be much longer, okay, thanks, bye." He shut the door behind her and walked back over to Naruto and crouched down again by his cage, fixing him with a serious look. "Now, if I'm going to take this kidou off of you then you're going to have to promise to be quiet and calmly tell me how you got so cut up. Can you do that?"

Naruto nodded so hard his head turned into an orange blur and ended up banging it on the wall of his cage again.

Urahara sighed and released the bond around the fox's mouth. _Close enough. _

_"_So first I met this Renji shinigami guy who it turned out was stalking Rukia and I decided to stick around because I figured there was no way to warn her if I didn't know where she was but Renji and me did this superpowered rabbit hop thing and when we came back we found her because she was eating lunch outside with some other girls who were actually really nice and fed me. Orihime and her tomboy friend were there too!" He said as quickly as he could, only taking a breath at the very end. He took another breath and looked like he was about to continue his high speed summary when he stopped himself blinking drowsily. "I'm really tired all of a sudden." He said, sounding surprised.

_He's starting to feel the side effects._ Urahara thought to himself. _I__'ll have to finish this_ _quickly_. "Did Rukia see Abaraii?"

Naruto shook his head, blinking rapidly and obviously trying to fight the fatigue the drugs brought on but despite his efforts Urahara could see his eyelids were starting to droop. "He hid in a tree. Rukia left and he told me that he was going to ambush her once she left school." He froze, alarm making him wide awake. "What time is it now?"

"That doesn't matter right now. What did you do next?"

"No, it does matter! How long have I been sleeping? I need to get out of here!" Naruto shouted and shoved his weight against the door which made a clanging noise but stayed firm.

"I'm afraid you can't do that. The veterinarian that stitched you up was quite certain that you shouldn't move too much for at least a week though she didn't know about your healing abilities. But even those can't help you right now. By the dosage you've been given you should be unconscious right now. You're only awake right now because of your metabolism being much higher then a normal fox and my help in cleansing some of it out. Even with that I suspect that you should be about to crash by now. You can feel it, can't you?"

"But they could be kidnapping Rukia right now! Hell, that psycho that stabbed me could be doing the same to her right now! If I can't then you do something! Get to her before they do! If you aren't strong enough to hold them off then get Ichigo. He's strong!" Naruto shouted, angry and desperate, ignoring how sluggish and slow his limbs felt

"Not strong enough." Urahara shot right back at him calmly, but the word had as much force behind it as if he was shouting right back at Naruto. Instinctively, the fox's ears flicked backwards and he bared his teeth as his fur stood on end defensively.

"What do you mean by that?" He growled slowly, having to keep himself from turning the words into an actual growl.

"Even if Ichigo did find out and went to confront those shinigami, do you honestly think that he could stop them? He couldn't even hinder them at the level he is at. They're going to take Rukia with or without Ichigo's interference. But it won't end there. It's a crime to give shinigami powers to a human. They won't leave Ichigo alone once they take Rukia. At the very least they would forcefully take the powers out of him, a dangerous process that could kill him."

"Or?" Naruto couldn't help asking even though he felt he really wouldn't like the answer.

"They kill him and they take Rukia back to face execution for her crimes."

Naruto's body slackened and he sat down, eyes wide but not seeing anything, the action not even registering in his mind. He could feel a heavy weight pressing down on him from all sides, suffocating him and dragging him down as if he had been carrying the world on his shoulders all this time but had just noticed it. There was a dull pounding in his ears which a small absent part of him noticed that it was his rapid heart beat while the rest of his mind was trying to think but it was like a heavy fog had descended on his mind, slowing it to an unbearable pace.

"Just open this cage- I could run, find Rukia and Ichigo and warn them." Naruto begged, but he could feel the heavy fog in his mind growing stronger and knew he wouldn't be able to fight against the need to sleep much longer but desperately trying anyways. "We could hide! I could try and hold off those shinigami or-"

"Or what?" Urahara interrupted. "Defeat them? Send them back to Soul Society? Face it, you're even worse then Ichigo. There is _nothing_ you could do. You couldn't even touch that shinigami before he nearly killed you. Ichigo fighting them would be madness. You fighting them would be suicide. You would just be running to add yourself to the death count. That is if you didn't fall asleep first. Don't try to fool yourself. You can't even break out of this cage. You're powerless." Urahara said harshly with a ice cold voice. He didn't enjoy doing this to Naruto but the situation was getting desperate. It needed to happen now or he was sure Naruto would never be able to do it.

Naruto wanted to swear at something, to shake off this drowsiness clinging to every inch of his body and slowing his mind, to break down this cage door and just run, grab Ichigo and Rukia, Yuzu, Karin, hell, he'd grab Isshin! Just take them on his back and run. He wanted to snarl and roar, to tear at Renji and Byakuya for threatening what was **his.** His home. His friends. His family.

All he could do was throw against himself against the cage door with all the force he could summon into his tired limbs. It stood strong and unmoving, indifferent to Naruto and his attempts to save the world he had found for himself and brought into his heart. He couldn't even find the strength in himself too stand up again, finally giving in to the weight and falling from the door to lay in a crumpled mass of orange fur, his eyes drooping dangerously close to closed.

_I'm sorry, Rukia, Ichigo. I'm sorry, Yuzu, Karin. Ichigo isn't... _He trailed off, his heart clenching and despite the fog that was blocking out everything else he found the strength to be angry, red-hot rage. Not at Urahara for not letting him go. Not even at Renji and Byakuya. He wasn't sure who he was angry at but he did know he was angry at _someone_. Or maybe it was something. The knowledge of who or what he was angry at was nonexistent, the only image that came to mind was a white shining light.

_This isn't right!_ Naruto shouted angrily at the light. He was on the edge of unconsciousness but he was still fighting, growling softly even as his eyes finally flickered shut. _Why aren't I strong enough to protect my friends?! Why can't I keep two little girls from crying? I should be able to keep them and the rest of my family safe! I should be stronger then this! WHERE IS MY STRENGTH?__  
><em>

_**I'm right here, Naruto.**_


	17. Goodbye and Thank you

**So, hello. For anyone who doesn't care to listen to my excuses, here's the short story. I'm putting this story on hiatus but there's also a good chance it might never get updated. Skip to the bottom for something real quick if you don't want to read the apologies or the reasons.**

**I just want to say that I am genuinely sorry that I'm doing this. I'm not sure how much this story actually affected you but if I could then I would continue this story to the very end. But I really can't. I don't really like Naruto all that much anymore or Bleach(though, hey, anyone following the manga there? Getting good!) and I realized recently after taking a break from stressing out about writing the next chapter of a story that I can feel myself losing interest in that it was doing exactly that, stressing me out. It became a chore and it was doing nothing but make me constantly feel guilty and anxious. I only made it this far because I wanted to continue it for you guys, all my lovely readers, who were never anything less then amazing in your reviews. I can't thank you all enough for all the smiles you've given me and I think that through this story you have made me a better writer. Thank you.**

**So I give all of you a choice, would you like to leave it here or would you like me to fork over my notes for the rest of this? I actually did write a good portion of ****the very last chapter so, any takers? And if anyone would be interested in adopting it then I would LOVE you.**

**So... it's up to you guys now. Thank you all so much.**


	18. Not So Final Chapter Part One

**Warning, if you want to read the continued adopted version of this which I currently have a offer for then you shouldn't read this because it will spoil it. Also, to imagine the end of the Naruto world as I imagined it a year ago when we knew less, you're going to have to forget some things and imagine Sasuke as an actual 3d character who can shut up about revenge for a few minutes. Carry on.**

The first thing he felt was cold, the damp kind where it feels like you've been drenched in ice water. His eyes fluttered open revealing cerulean orbs before they squeezed shut again with a groan. After a minute more of lying on the ground, dead to the world, he cautiously opened his eyes again and blinked a few times to get used to the light before surveying his current location.

He was in the dirty back alley of some city. It was just his luck to be positioned in the only place where he would get sun in his eyes in the otherwise dark alley. He glared at the sun even though it was a pointless gesture and winced from the overload of light on his eyes once more.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position but it felt a little strange. He brushed it off for being cramps from lying on the ground before focusing on the more important problem. How did he get here? On second thought, where was here?

He tried to recall what he had been doing that could have possibly landed him in this situation but drew a blank. In fact, he couldn't seem to remember where he should be. With a small amount of panic, he tried to remember anything at all, a name, a face, a _past_, but ended up with the same answer as before.

Nothing.

**Now let's rewind a bit...**

"Rasengan!"

Blood sprayed Naruto's clothes, dying the tattered shreds of once orange clothing stiff with dried blood a fresh red. Madara clutched his side, trying futilely to stop the bleeding from the obviously fatal wound.

They were finally reaching a conclusion to the three daylong, nonstop battle between the two of them. All around them the Forth Shinobi War raged. Ninjas of all villages fought against the white Zetsu clones that never seemed to end. Undead ninjas who were legends during their lifetime were sending one mass destruction jutsu after another as the shinobi army struggled to seal them away.

But none of this seemed to touch Madara and Naruto. It was like there was a barrier around them. Not even the ninjas raised by Kabuto's forbidden jutsu attempted to interfere with the two.

For three days they had fought against each other. Madara's space-time jutsu had given out on the second day. Even he couldn't outlast a jinchuuriki's chakra reserves. Once he couldn't avoid attacks by using his jutsu, Naruto had started to go all out against him. Before they had started fighting he prepared fifty senjutsu clones but they had run out half way through the second day. From that moment on he used _mode. (**Okay, I'm not sure what I originally meant to put here)**

Back and forth they shot deadly jutsu at each other, but by the third day even Naruto's almost unlimited chakra was barely even there. Madara would have collapsed a day ago if it weren't for his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Both had sustained injuries that would have knocked an average man unconscious and unable to move. They were so caught up in fighting each other with barely enough time to move that they paid almost no mind to the life threatening injuries, but now they had finally caught up with them.

"Y-you," Madara said pausing to cough up blood. "It is obvious that I shall die but there is no way that you won't either. Both of us will breathe our last breath on this battlefield! Even without me the Zetsu clones will keep attacking! The United Shinobi Army will be annihilated!" He began to laugh, a crazed look in his eyes and practically frothing at the mouth.

Blood flowed even faster from his wounds as all of the air that he had been struggling to breathe earlier left his body. His laughter seemed to block out all other noises and to Naruto in the climax of war it felt like all the other noises ceased to exist. Nothing seemed to matter at the moment. He couldn't hear anything but Madara's echoing laughter and his own feeble heartbeat.

_Ba-bump, Ba-bump,_

Madara made one last choking noise before falling over to lay face first in the bloodied soil. His newest mask, a white one with three tomoe like markings, slipped off and rolled to a stop a few feet away from him. A small, childish voice in Naruto wanted to finally see what the man's face looked like but the general struggle of breathing pushed it away.

_Ba-bump, Ba-Bump,_

"Naruto!" From out of nowhere, Naruto's friends appeared. Shikamaru, Choji, and Ino came first, having been the closest to where Madara and Naruto were fighting. Shikamaru only paused to check Madara's pulse before joining his teammates to where Naruto was sitting on the ground. _That's weird… I don't remember sitting down… _Naruto thought sluggishly, barely even hearing his friends talking franticly to him or noticing Ino trying to heal some of his wounds with her meager medic skills.

_Ba-bump, Ba-bump,_

Next came Team Gai, Sai and Kakashi. Sai's face was as blank as ever but there was a twitch of emotion on there, which was very extreme for Sai. Tenten and Lee looked worried and Neji had a serious expression on but Naruto could tell that he was concerned. Kakashi's face, or what he could see of it, was slightly desperate and the copy ninja was using his Sharingan to check Naruto's chakra system, even attempting to use a medic ninjutsu that he must have copied off of Sakura. Their voices also joined the loud hum as they tried to get him to respond to their words, but all Naruto could do was flicker his eyes against the suddenly harsh sunlight that seemed to be shining directly into his eyes.

_Ba…Bump, Ba…Bump,_

The last ones to come were Team Kurenai, with Sakura running ahead of them and Gaara, who was also approaching as fast as he could with his nervousness making the sand ripple through the air around him. Sakura reached him first as she pushed everyone away from Naruto and started to try and heal him. A drop of saltwater, hot but at the same time cooling his skin, fell onto his cheek and left a line through the blood that coated it. Gaara reached him next, kneeling by Sakura and using his sand to try and stop the bleeding. _Sakura, Gaara, Everyone… Why… Why do you look so sad?_

_Ba…Bump, Ba…Bump_

_There's only one person who's missing…_Naruto thought as he looked at his friends surrounding him. All of their faces surrounding him, some tear stricken, others grimly serious, but all worried. He searched desperately through them, even though he knew that that person wouldn't come.

_Ba…Bump, Ba…Bump,_

Finally he caught sight of something at the corner of his eyes. His vision had long since started to blur but he could recognize that person anywhere. Hair so black it seemed blue, pale skin. Naruto sighed and relaxed his body, watching as Sasuke pushed through the crowd of startled and now tense ninja. Permanently red eyes widened in a rare show of shock when he saw the extent of Naruto's injuries. He also kneeled by Naruto, in between Sakura and Gaara whose sand was poised to strike at the slightest sign of violence. Naruto was surprised when he saw something glimmering in Sasuke's eyes. "Dobe," Naruto could clearly hear Sasuke's voice, which was shaking slightly. "You stupid Dobe! It wasn't supposed to end this way!" Sasuke made a choking noise before saying in a much quieter tone. "You weren't supposed to die…"

_Ba…Bump, Ba…Bump,_

"Hey Teme," Naruto said in a dry voice, startling the group around him. He struggled to focus on Sasuke's face while he drew in a long rattling breath. "Pr-promise me something." "Yes?" Sasuke said hesitantly.

"Promise me that you won't run away from your friends anymore."

Sasuke looked shocked for a second before lowering his his head, his face hidden in shadows and a sad smile on his face. "Yeah, Dobe. I promise." Sparkling drops of water seemed to fall in slow motion before splashing onto Naruto's face, joining the countless others there, both from the people around him and himself.

_Ba…Bump, Ba…_

Naruto let out a relieved laugh, but had to stop himself when he choked on blood. His friends fidgeted around him and Sakura continued to try and heal him with renewed effort until he raised a shaking hand and put it on top of hers. Jade eyes overflowing with tears turned to stare at him with desperation and a hint of betrayal. He just smiled at her and shook his head softly. He lied his head back down on the ground feeling like he had been carrying the world on his shoulders and the weight was finally being lifted. The jinchuuriki lifted his eyes to stare at the red from the setting sun. "A red dawn. How ironic_._" He said absentmindedly, feeling his life leave him as the crimson color left the sky, leaving it a dark purple. Naruto smiled one last time, his eyes closing from the size of it. It was the smile he used to assure everyone that everything was going to be all right.

_Bump…_

_I kept my promise, Sakura-chan. All of my promises._

**Yes, that's right. Even in my notes to give you closure, I am leaving you with a cliffhanger. Cue evil laughter!**

**This is actually Part One of my notes and Tadaa! It is actually a written scene. (Ouch, look at that younger me's writing. I cannot promise quality from this, sorry.) This was nearly the first chapter(minus those first three paragraphs I put there to set the mood.) You almost ended up reading Naruto's death scene before he woke up in the alley with no memories but while at the time I decided I would work out my plans for this story a bit more along the way then rewrite it, I did save it and I'm sure glad I did. I got to torture all of you so much more! **

**In Part Two, you will probably see some of my scrappy notes if I don't end up rewriting it all for coherency.**


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